Ricciardo’s Mexican GP transcript · RaceFans

The Mexican Grand Prix was a rare bright spot in an otherwise forgettable 2022 campaign for Daniel Ricciardo.

The McLaren driver is marking time until the end of the season following the announcement he will not return to the team again in 2023 as planned.

He qualified outside the top 10 again in Mexico, but on race day tyre strategy fell in his favour. Despite being penalised for a tangle with Yuki Tsunoda, he picked up a badly-needed points finish for McLaren, which moved them closer to rivals Alpine in the constructors championship.

Ricciardo freely admitted afterwards he had been able to jump ahead of team mate Lando Norris thanks to a mid-race change in strategy. Both drivers started the race on the medium rubber, but after Norris pitted for the hard tyres, McLaren realised the soft tyres would work for the second stint, and Ricciardo took a set of those.

While he dismissed Norris’ claim that the strategy was worth as much as 40 seconds, Ricciardo acknowledged he benefited from pitting later and choosing a different compound.

“If it was 40 seconds, everyone would have done it,” said Ricciardo. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, it was the better strategy, there’s no doubt. But it was in our plan, if the tyre was lasting, keep going and try to attack at the end. And that’s what we did.”

Daniel Ricciardo’s 2022 Mexican Grand Prix team radio messages

Ricciardo was involved in a first-corner collision at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez 12 months earlier. This time he was more cautious, but lost two places on the opening lap, as Yuki Tsunoda starting strongly immediately behind him and Zhou Guanyu found a way past too.

While McLaren were concerned about managing the rising temperatures in his car, Ricciardo was trying to regain his place from Zhou, which he eventually managed.

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Getting past Zhou was important, as Ricciardo was able to put five seconds on the Alfa Romeo before his pit stop.

“The one thing that kept me a little optimistic was I was quicker than Zhou and I feel like the Alfas had been quick all weekend,” he said afterwards. “So I was losing time with him but eventually when I passed him I thought, ‘okay, maybe we’re we’re still in this race’.”

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At this stage in the race McLaren were still on ‘plan A’ for Ricciardo, indicating they planned to pit for the hard tyre compound. He indicated he preferred that strategy.

Ricciardo was also concerned with trying to improve his car’s braking performance, which has been a recurring theme since his joined the team last year.

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The first front runners to pit were those who, unlike the McLaren drivers, started on the soft compounds. The Mercedes drivers had started on mediums and opted for hards when they came in.

McLaren appeared to be encouraged by what they saw of Lewis Hamilton’s initial sector times on hards, and swiftly brought Norris in. Meanwhile Ricciardo was told to push in anticipation of his pit stop.

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Ricciardo was within four seconds of his team mate when Norris pitted, which gave him encouragement. “I could see Lando and the guys, they were certainly, some laps, quicker,” he recalled. “But then I would reel them back. So I felt I was still in the fight, which hasn’t been very often this year.

“So I was kind of just doing my pace and once I saw they pitted, I wasn’t really that tempted to follow them because it just puts me in that race and I’m just behind them.”

While Norris couldn’t ‘switch on’ the hards immediately, McLaren were intrigued to note Vettel had started the race on a set of soft tyres and was still going strong. They began to think about switching Ricciardo to softs instead – ‘plan C’.

Ricciardo was open to the idea. “Tom kept asking me how much longer I could go. I said, even though my pace might not be the fastest car on the track, I felt like we can keep stretching it.

“I think Vettel was still on a soft doing well, so that gave me some confidence that tyre would work. And it was certainly a good strategy.”

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By lap 41 Ricciardo was losing well over half a second per lap compared to Norris, and McLaren decided it was time to bring him in.

Ricciardo was immediately happy with the decision to take the soft rubber. “As soon as I got out the pits, the tyre was so much better,” he said. “I could lean on it and I felt like I was in control.

“So I was like, let’s just use this to see what it is, see what it’s got. And then it stayed relatively consistent. So I kind of pushed really hard and just tried to manage it and it was still giving me a lot more pace.”

He quickly caught Tsunoda, who had started on softs and switched to mediums 15 laps before Ricciardo pitted. The McLaren was much quicker, but when Ricciardo took a half-look up the inside of the AlphaTauri at turn sixt, the pair made contact, leaving his rival with race-ending bodywork damage.

There was little discussion of the collision on the radio besides the team noting Ricciardo’s car had emerged unscathed.

The stewards swiftly handed down a 10-second time penalty for a move they viewed as “too late and too optimistic”. But McLaren, realising how strong Ricciardo’s pace was, told him it made no difference to their strategy.

Ricciardo was unhappy with the penalty. He’d been penalised for a collision with Carlos Sainz Jnr at Imola earlier in the year, but on that occasion felt he’d made a mistake.

But he kept his counsel on the radio. “I figured they probably had to do something,” he said afterwards. “But also it’s so hard when you’re in the heat of battle.

“I didn’t remember locking [up] like with Carlos in Imola, turn one, I went off the apex and slid into him. It didn’t feel like that. I was going to come on the radio and vent a little, but I chose to say nothing, I went pretty dark and then just decided to keep pushing and try to make up for it.”

Ricciardo’s frustration was no doubt soothed by picking up a position from his team mate, who was told to let him by. “Daniel is the car behind Perez,” Will Joseph advised Norris, “he will be quicker than you, let him go, he has a 10-second penalty.”

Ricciardo picked up another place from Bottas and closed on the two Alpines – McLaren’s main championship rivals. As he closed on them, Alonso’s car developed an engine problem and he was an easy target. Ricciardo also took Ocon for seventh.

With his superior pace, Ricciardo now had to pull out a 10-second lead over Ocon to negate the effect of his post-race penalty. But he was at risk of being lapped by George Russell, who was closing in behind.

“In the last few laps I was pretty nervous because George was so close to getting a blue flag for me and I knew I would lose a couple of seconds with that and that would have dropped me back into Ocon,” said Ricciardo. “So I was pushing like hell just to try and hold that two-second gap.”

To Ricciardo’s relief, Russell made an extra pit stop to fit a fresh set of tyres in a bid to set the fastest lap and take a bonus point. That meant Ricciardo did not have to slow for blue flags, saving him precious seconds. “I’ll buy him a beer,” Ricciardo joked after the race.

Ricciardo’s effort to build up a lead was briefly interrupted when the Virtual Safety Car was deployed in reaction to Alonso’s retirement. It did not last long, however, to the disappointment of Norris, who was lobbying McLaren to use the opportunity to pit him for a set of softs.

Over the final laps Ricciardo pulled out the gap he needed over Ocon, thanks in part to Russell pitting.

He took the chequered flag inside the points-paying positions for only the sixth time this year.

Not only did the result come as a relief to Ricciardo, he was pleased to have had a rare race in which he felt he could attack. “Even the points finishes, even probably last year, I feel we were normally defending than attacking,” he said. “So just to have an attacking race, especially for me with this car, to feel like I can attack a little bit more with it, it’s just a nice feeling.”

However with just two races left as a McLaren driver, Ricciardo isn’t getting carried away about his future chances on the basis of a single strong race.

“I guess better late than never,” he said on Sunday evening in Mexico City. “I’m going to take today for what it is. I’m going to enjoy it and appreciate that we did our pace and it was awesome and whatever.

“I hope it means that it’ll be like that the next two races, but I don’t want to be negative, but I don’t even want to look ahead. I just want to take today for what it is and hopefully we’ve learnt something from it.”

2022 Mexican Grand Prix

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