McLaren F1 Team‘s Daniel Ricciardo found his Monaco Grand Prix Free Practice Two session come to an end before it even started, after losing the rear of his MCL36 car mid-corner at the swimming pool chicane. The Australian lost the rear again while trying to correct the initial mistake, before hitting the barrier on exit and sliding into another barrier at the following chicane.
Thankfully, the Australian driver was okay, but significant damage to the car meant that he was to unable to make it back out on track; meaning his session ended without a lap time being set. This is not ideal for McLaren, as this is a missed opportunity for crucial data collection going into one of the trickiest weekends on the calendar from a driving and overtaking perspective.
With his future beyond 2022 currently uncertain (and lots of media talks after a disappointing outing in Spain), Ricciardo says that he will put the crash behind him and focus on the upcoming sessions:
“FP2 was obviously a very short session with a crash on the first lap. We had a decent running earlier in the day, I feel it was a solid FP1, and we obviously just tried to push the car more and try a few things with set-up. I think we ultimately just pushed it a bit too far and I lost the car in the high-speed Swimming Pool.“
The thirty-two year old went on to explain that he tried his best to catch the initial slide, but due to the narrow nature of the Monaco street circuit, wasn’t able to save it.
“I did my best to catch it but obviously this track is so unforgiving that you can’t get away with anything. It is what it is: obviously it’s a long night ahead for the mechanics which puts a bit of a downer on the day – but I’m still not going to let it affect us into tomorrow.”
“We know where we went wrong and we’ll fix it for tomorrow. Lando’s pace looked decent, so we’ll hopefully put ourselves back up there, in a good position tomorrow.”
After failing to finish in the points at last weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix, Ricciardo will be hoping for a clean weekend and a points-scoring finish to help McLaren fight for ‘best of the rest’.
Norris is ‘feeling better’ after Spanish Grand Prix’s tonsillitis struggles
After impressively scoring points at the Spanish Grand Prix, despite being ill all weekend with tonsillitis, Lando Norris says that he is feeling better going into the seventh round of the 2022 FIA Formula 1 World Championship at Monte Carlo.
The Briton finished fifth in both free practice sessions on Friday afternoon, and will be looking to replicate this performance in qualifying, as this would be a great result for the McLaren team.
“It was a decent day, I would say, and I’m feeling better. I think the initial feeling in the car was good in terms of it giving me some good confidence. It was a car that I felt like I could push on and find the limit quite quickly, which is a very important thing here in Monaco.”
“We worked our way through our programme, and took it step-by-step, trying to find some small improvements here and there, wherever we could, which was good learning,” the number four driver continued.
“We need to look at it overnight and put what we learnt into the usual plan for tomorrow but I’m happy with today.
McLaren are currently fourth in the constructors championship, eleven points clear of Alfa Romeo F1 Team ORLEN in fifth, and are looking to extend this lead this weekend at a circuit that is very unforgiving.
