Ricciardo: McLaren in "good place" amid encouraging F1 test showing

Mercedes driver George Russell has singled out McLaren and Ferrari as the two teams to watch from early running, as he admits the reigning constructors’ champions are a step behind at the moment.

But even though teams have not yet started to fully explore the performance potential of their cars, Ricciardo said there is an underlying feeling of optimism about the new MCL36 – even though he does not know who has the fastest car right now.

“It's hard to quantify who's ahead at the moment,” explained the Australian.

“One of the things you want is laps and we’ve [himself and Lando Norris] had both days over 100 laps. We're in a good position from that point of view with reliability, and the more laps we do, the more things we can test and learn from the car.

“I think we're in a good place from that point of view. And we seem to be up at the pointy end of the times.

“But I don’t think Mercedes or Red Bull have really done anything showing any cards yet, so I don't really look too much at the times. Ferrari, I think they look solid. They look consistently good.

“I’m not trying not to read too much into it yet. It's still early and we need to focus on ourselves.

“There's definitely some good things I feel in the car and as always some things to work on. But I think we've started off with a good base.”

Daniel Ricciardo, McLaren MCL36

Photo by: Alessio Morgese

Ricciardo said the solid running over the first two days of the test had already left McLaren feeling it understood the strengths of its package, so it could now focus on areas where it feels need to be lifted.

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“I’m pretty comfortable in the car,” he said. 

“I think we are just trying to figure out still where I think I know our strengths already.

“We're just trying to now work on the weaknesses from a driving and a set-up point of view. So yeah, lots of information to give the team now.”