Daniel Ricciardo says his RB team have benefited from the experience he brought when he joined them in the middle of last year.
He is the most experienced driver ever to race for Red Bull’s second Formula 1 team.
“I’ve been in F1 a long time, driven a lot of cars, seen a lot of things,” he said in an interview for The Age, admitting he “underestimated” the knowledge he brought to RB.
“The team was struggling a bit at the time, and I could see that my experience was helping. The way the team responded to what I had to say, the questions they asked.”
“You realise with age that you have the power to change how a garage feels, how a team responds,” he added. “There’s hundreds of people that work with these teams, but you’re one of two people who the world watches to see how the team performs. We don’t just drive the car, we have the ability to alter the atmosphere in the room and that’s something I’m definitely more aware of.”
Ricciardo returned to the team last year, when it competed as AlphaTauri, having previously driven for it in 2012 and 2013 under its prior identity, Toro Rosso. He replaced Nyck de Vries, who failed to impress the team over his first 10 races last year.
Under its various identities, RB had a succession of junior drivers auditioning for a chance to join Red Bull. Ricciardo was one of a handful to make the grade, but left Red Bull at the end of 2018.
Having started 241 grands prix, Ricciardo is by far the most experienced driver to join the team. He is now partnered with Yuki Tsunoda, who is in his fourth season of F1.
At the season-opening round in Bahrain, Ricciardo said his 23-year-old team mate showed his “immaturity” by driving close to him on the cool-down lap in frustration over a team orders call which went against him. The pair have now smoothed things over.
“No one’s going to benefit from us having a rivalry or attention or anything like this from race one of a long season,” he said. “Especially when the team has new personnel. Everyone’s trying to pick each other up and build themselves and the confidence, we need to help them do that as well.
“What happened at the end of the race wasn’t great, but two hours later we walked out of a meeting [and] actually put the team in a better place than it was.”
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Formula 1
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