Daniel Ricciardo has revealed to holding a recent “open book” meeting with RB in a bid to get to the bottom of his difficult start to the season.
With the exception of Miami, when he went into the grand prix with a new chassis that resulted in him qualifying and finishing fourth in the spint, Ricciardo’s campaign has been disappointing.
After another below-par weekend in Monaco where he was 12th, Ricciardo held deep-dive discussions with his “engineers and inner circle” in a bid to get to the bottom of why he not performing in contrast to team-mate Yuki Tsunoda.
After Monaco, the Japanese driver had collected five top-10 results in his past six grands prix, whereas Ricciardo had yet to claim a point from a grand prix.
“I always look at the on-track stuff – can I brake later here, or do this and that,” said Ricciardo, speaking to media, including RacingNews365.
“After Monaco, I also looked at some other things affecting my performances – am I coming into a race weekend not feeling energised or not feeling this or that?
“I had some good self-therapy after Monaco, a look at the things I’m doing wrong away from the track. Am I giving too much away to people, and by the time I get to race day I’m a little bit flat, because I know it’s in me?
“As I said, we’re always going to try to fine tune the car, but deep down, I know what I can do. It’s just making sure I’m in the spot to be able to do it more often. I try to take as much accountability as possible and think a little bit broader.”
That resulted in the meeting with those closest to him. “It was open book, constructive criticism, give it to me,” he said. “What do you think I can clean up? Where do you feel I’m maybe missing something?
“A lot of it was just managing my energy management over the course of the weekend. It’s not even what I’m doing in the car. It’s just what gets me into the car feeling like I’m ready to go.
“It was just trying to clean up some of those things, and if there was anything on my mind, trying to get it off my chest.”
It resulted in Ricciardo heading into the Canada weekend feeling “a bit lighter, hungry and happy”, and culminating in him securing fifth place on the grid, and his first points in a grand prix this season with eighth after taking a five-second penalty for a false start.
“We were pretty open with each other,” added Ricciardo. “But I wanted to make sure that there was nothing that they saw…they needed to unload.
“I just basically wanted to know, ‘What do you guys think is going wrong? Tell me if there’s something you see from me. I want to try and fix it. But I’ll also tell you guys what I feel and maybe why I do feel a little bit flat. Maybe the schedule is a bit too much at the moment or whatever’.
“So we just had a very open chat and it was great because I also wanted to give them the comfort to tell me straight. I’m nearly 35, I don’t need too many more pats on the back. I’d rather people just be very direct with me. I felt like it was productive and that continued through the week after.”