Just as his British teammate Lando Norris had led the timesheets after the opening day, Australian Ricciardo followed up by being quickest over the morning session on Thursday.
The 32-year-old eventually finished third fastest over the whole day, with only Ferrari pacesetter Charles Leclerc and AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly ahead on the timesheets.
Just as encouraging for the Australian was that he was able to put his car through 126 laps of testing, bettered on the day only by Gasly’s 147.
It was an impressive start for both Ferrari and McLaren, who offered just the first brief glimpse that they could be more competitive this season against the dominant Mercedes and Red Bull teams.
Ricciardo finished ahead of Mercedes new boy George Russell, who noted how impressive the opposition looked and admitted his team weren’t at the moment ahead of either Ferrari or McLaren.
“Some teams are looking pretty fast,” he said.
“A red team and an orange team in particular look very, very competitive.”
Ricciardo had enjoyed mixed fortunes in his first season for McLaren, often struggling behind Norris, who was the fastest man over the first two days of testing, but also earning a tremendous victory in the Italian Grand Prix.
But he’s been in buoyant mood after a refreshing break, and reckoned he’s enjoying the challenge presented by F1’s new generation of cars, introduced after major changes to technical regulations designed to make racing more competitive..
“The more years you do, the less excited you are to test and the more excited you are to go racing, but it’s definitely the most excited I have been in a while to go winter testing,” the 32-year-old Australian had said on Wednesday.
“The curiosity to see what direction teams have gone in and just visually, the cars look really cool.”
Russell’s teammate Lewis Hamilton had an underwhelming day, being the slowest of the 16 drivers who made it to the track although his efforts were curtailed somewhat by a morning red flag caused by Sergio Perez’s Red Bull’s gearbox problem.
- AAP
