F1 | Mekies: “Ricciardo is coming back, but we don’t know what was holding him back”

Miami has returned at least in part that Daniel Ricciardo that Racing Bulls and Formula 1 fans. The fourth place obtained in the Sprint Race last Saturday thanks to an exceptional defense against Carlos Sainz and Oscar Piastri who followed him a few tenths of a second.

A strong, concrete response, after a start to the season well below expectations which had even led the top management of the team and Red Bull to question his seat. As we wrote a few weeks ago, if the Australian had failed to improve his performances he could have lost his place already this season in favor of Liam Lawson.

Laurent Mekies, team principal of Racing Bulls, commented on the recovery of the former McLaren driver to Motorsport.com.

“I think a lot of weight has been lifted off his shoulders, because the Miami match is almost a second home match for him. He achieved a great result with Sile, with an incredible defense on Sainz and Piastri. It was a fantastic moment for him”.

“To be honest, we had already seen signs of improvement and he had already shown them from several races. But it was really difficult to explain to those watching the racing outside of our team.”

“In Saudi Arabia it performed better than Bahrain, Australia performed better than Saudi Arabia, Japan performed better than Australia and in China it performed better than Japan. They arrived small improvements, but constant. However, there are further steps forward to be made in the next races to try to make the car more suitable for what he requires in terms of driving.”

Racing Bulls managed to find things to help Daniel. The first of these was the chassis change. But others will be made during the next races: “Let’s say that we identified some things that didn’t suit him. We tried to eliminate all the limitations that he felt and in the coming weekends we would like to see some more of them.”

“It was always planned to introduce a new chassis before six races. It was a nice box to tick for the problems Daniel was having, to make him feel more comfortable, and he immediately went better in China and Miami. a great value for a team to be able to understand and analyze what is happening with the drivers and it is not always visible in the data. We are still trying to understand what the problem was that was disturbing it. We are still doing the inspections.

Mekies then underlined how, in qualifying for the Miami Grand Prix, Ricciardo offered a very different performance due to incorrect tire temperature.

“In qualifying for the GP we were a little outside the ideal window for tire use. With a small mistake you find yourself outside and this is the reality. But it’s also the beauty of racing. There are 10 or 12 cars fighting for the points, but it’s definitely a really strong pressure on every team.”