Riccardo: The feeling is the same as in Budapest

Daniel Ricciardo returned to the wheel of an AlphaTauri car on Saturday in the sprint in Austin, his first race after almost two months away with a left hand injury.

The Australian finished twelfth and compared his impressions with those of the Hungarian race weekend, when he took over from Nyck de Vries in the Faenza team for the first time. At the end of July he managed to hold two races: at the Hungaroring and in Spa. And at the end of August he seriously injured his hand during training in Zandvoort, after which he was out of action for a long time.

The American weekend did not start well for Ricciardo; On Friday he only showed the fifteenth result in qualifying, but on Saturday things were a bit better. In qualifying for the sprint Daniel came 11th, just 0.031 seconds ahead of the top ten, and in the short race he took 12th place.

“My arm works fine,” he declared after the finish. “What probably worries me most is the race format, which is currently being tested. Before the break I did two races and after that I haven’t done anything like that for a long time, so now the feeling is about the same as in Budapest.

Of course I foresee that I will probably have to sweat more than the others, but to be honest everything went better than I thought, so I had no more worries for the Grand Prix.

After the sprint we can definitely talk about both the pros and cons. The upside is that I had fun! It was a real pleasure to return to the starting field. My favorite thing about a race weekend is probably when the starting lights slowly come on and then go out. Right now the adrenaline is off the charts, and in life there are few places where you can experience such sensations. Overall it was great.

But also – and I don’t want to talk about this because I’m very experienced, but it turns out that this year I’m competing as a not so experienced driver – it feels like I’m not in the best class race form.

For example, in Turn 1 of the first lap I should have known a little earlier that there would be no more room on the inside line, but I stayed on it even though a few other cars moved to the outside radius.

So there were some moments related to the fact that I didn’t really understand the situation on the track, but as the race went on I felt that I was choosing the trajectories more correctly and making progress. Overall, I definitely have something to work on during the preparation for the Grand Prix.”

In any case, Ricciardo admitted that he had made the right decision by missing the stage in Qatar, although he did not rule out that his return could have taken place a little earlier: “Thanks to this extra time I gained confidence, because most of the time I was alone afraid that I would return and make excuses, and this would upset both the team and me. No one would have gained anything from it, so I’m glad our approach was the right one.”