Ricciardo battled physically at Bahrain after COVID

LONDON, United Kingdom, Mar 22 – McLaren driver Daniel Ricciardo’s struggles in Sunday’s Bahrain Grand Prix were not only with his new MCL36 car but he was also battling physically after his recent bout of COVID.

Ricciardo missed out on the final week of testing in Bahrain after testing positive for Covid, which forced him to race over the past weekend with very little time to get used to the new car after being isolated for five days due to the virus.

The McLaren team of Ricciardo and Lando Norris finished in a disappointing 14th and 15th overall respectively.

The Australian admitted having not felt at his best behind the wheel on Sunday at Sakhir after the 57-lap race.

“I’d love to lie and say I feel awesome,” Ricciardo said after the race. “But yeah, I certainly felt it.

“Even if I just take lying in bed – forget COVID and just say I laid in bed for five days, that in itself was always going to make the weekend challenging and then, in addition, the feelings of COVID.

“Not the easiest race I’ve ever done physically, but I still felt like I was able to compete at a high enough level. Happy to get the race distance done and hopefully it gets easier from here.”

Ricciardo added that even if he had been 100% fit he would have not done any better than Sunday’s 14th position he achieved.

“I have to take Lando as a reference,” Ricciardo said. “Obviously, he showed he’s a very good reference from last year, and I looked at his lap in Q2 yesterday and it was only good enough for 13th, but the lap looked pretty good.

“I think, at least at this track, that was a true indication of our pace.

“If I did testing and this and that, I’d love to say maybe I could have found more time, but I think he did a decent lap yesterday, so there’s not half a second sitting in the car at the moment,” he added.