Following a rocky start to his 2022 season, with a particularly poor performance in Monaco, McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo was back on points scoring form last time out at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix with the Australian leading home teammate Norris to net a P8 finish.

The Australian reflects on his improvement and says he understands why McLaren chose to implement team orders during the race.

“It was definitely a better weekend,” Ricciardo said. “I think it was certainly smoother. It was good just to see how we came out of Monaco and the work that was done since Monaco. We’ve really kind of translated well onto the track. Everything we felt like we’d found or understood I think we certainly showed that or at least good signs of that on track at Baku.

“It’s also not an easy circuit as well, obviously with the nature of it, a low downforce street circuit. So to have a solid weekend there was encouraging. A good building block moving forward.”

When pushed on the team orders situation within the team, Ricciardo said it “evened itself out” during the race and commented on his faith in the strategy team.

“In the end, simply putting it, I had the orders early in the race and then Lando [Norris] then had them at the end so it kind of evened itself out.

“I think in the moment in the race, if you’re the attacking car you obviously want to charge through and try and get on with it, but these are also things that we talk about in strategy meetings and things. We’re aware that things like this can happen during a race and also in my experience now, full trust in the pit wall. They see the big picture of how the race is progressing.”

Ricciardo was also asked to comment on the contract extension of his home Grand Prix, with Albert Park now contracted until 2035 to host the Australian Grand Prix. Ricciardo was keen to show his excitement at the news and praised the organisation at the event where he says there is “always things going on”.

The Australian Grand Prix will be on the F1 race calendar until at least 2035 in Melbourne! 🇦🇺🙌#AustralianGP #F1 pic.twitter.com/u4wlt80XNi

— Formula 1 (@F1) June 15, 2022

“You beauty,” Ricciardo quipped. “It’s awesome. It’s obviously such a long term contract as well so it’s really encouraging and seeing as well F2 and F3 are going to go there. 

“I think that’s one thing the Australian Grand Prix has done so well is fill out the weekend. There’s always action on track, there’s always things going on around Albert Park. So now with the addition of F2 and F3 as well I think that’s really cool.”