Riccardo: We can play a few more tenths

Daniel Ricciardo finished Friday’s practice sessions ninth as per Friday’s protocol and hopes McLaren can add some more in preparation for qualifying.

Daniel Rickardo (9th): “Training went well, although it is clear that everything is relative compared to Alpine and other teams in the middle of the peloton. I think we can play a few more tenths, but overall we are on a good level.

Obviously those few tenths still have to be found somehow, but overall we are competitive and that gives the team confidence. In the evening we get to work with the car and I hope we can add something tomorrow.

Admittedly, my car had a small oil leak, so we did fewer laps than planned, but still showed decent results. We’ve had a few mechanical problems, but speed-wise we’re more or less calm, so the team doesn’t have to work in the garage until midnight and everyone can get a good night’s sleep.

If we manage to stay at this level for the remaining days of the weekend, we will have the chance to compete with Alpine and other teams. Let’s hope that the results of the training as a whole reflect the joining of forces, but let’s return to this conversation on Saturday night.

Lando Norris (11th): “Nice day. I missed the first practice and lost the car to Pato, that’s why I have the overtaking role, but I think we started the weekend strong. We will adjust the settings in the evening and try to take a step forward tomorrow.”

Pato O’Ward (18th in first practice): “Everything was great. We had to shorten the track work schedule a bit due to some issues that prevented us in the beginning, but I still really enjoyed it.

I can say I was quite surprised to feel that the difference from last year’s car is not that big. I know the changes were significant, but I would have expected the difference to be bigger. To be fair, these cars are still the fastest in the world.

But I would like the training to go a little more smoothly. When you start working on the track you adapt quickly and you start to understand better what to expect from the car, but in the beginning something was happening with it all the time and all sorts of problems were coming our way.

And yet the impressions are good. I’ve experimented with different trajectories and I have no doubt it was shown on TV that I had a hard time with the car on several occasions, but I was just trying to get to know the possibilities of the MCL36 better, and it was fun!

Absolutely, now I’ll pester Zack Brown and possibly Andreas Seidl with one question: “When can I get behind the wheel of this car again?” However, it’s hard to say when such an opportunity will present itself because we have a very tight championship calendar in IndyCar and races run non-stop from May to September.

In general, I don’t know how everything will turn out yet, but it would be great to get behind the wheel again before the start of the season in IndyCar, but I think it all depends on the authorities.