McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo has described a sixth-placed finish at 2021 French Grand Prix as a “dream” result, despite finishing behind teammate, Lando Norris.
Having found himself inside the top ten across two of three Practice sessions and qualified tenth, Ricciardo enjoyed a positive drive to sixth which he described as a “dream” result after McLaren claimed 18 points in total and Ferrari failed to score points.
The ex Red Bull driver though felt that the race was one which he was “hoping for” yet not what he “expected” at the same time”, as McLaren finished as the best midfield team in the race although Ricciardo “wasn’t totally happy with the car.”
Explaining his unease about the car’s performance in the race in which he had to stop on lap 17 and go 36 laps on the hard tyres, Ricciardo said: “I was struggling from the laps to grid and then for the whole race. But it felt like everyone else, besides Lando, was struggling more.”
Norris meanwhile remains the only driver to have scored points at every race this season and is currently on a 12 race streak of top ten finishes.
The Brit however “wasn’t really expecting” to finish fifth after qualifying eighth and believed that his McLaren wasn’t capable of showing “the pace that we did.”
Norris however has taken heart from how he coped with “tricky” tyre management” compared to pre-race expectations with his late stop on lap 25 for hard tyres in what he thought was “a fun race.”
McLaren Team Principal, Andreas Seidl praised both drivers for delivering a “strong” race through nailing their race performance and “execution” of an one-stop strategy to wrap up 18 “very important points” in the constructor fight for third against Ferrari who now sit 16 points behind in fourth.
F1 now prepares to return to Austria for a double-header across the next two weekends, which marked the scene of Norris’ maiden F1 podium last season.
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