Ricciardo savours "smooth" start to life with McLaren

Daniel Ricciardo revelled in a "pretty smooth" start to his McLaren career after topping the first session of pre-season testing in Bahrain.

Conditions were less than perfect as the three-day programme got underway with gusting wind blowing across the Bahrain International Circuit.

Driving in his first official session for McLaren in the MCL35M, Ricciardo wasted no time in stamping his mark on the team, underpinned by the fact there were no reliability issues.

“It was really good," said Ricciardo, who posted a lap of one minute 32.203secs. "It was a nice first half of the day. Everything went pretty smooth.

"Obviously, it’s always nice to see your name up the top but really the test on day one, it’s just about reliability and making sure everything runs and it was a good morning.

“The team is happy and it’s just nice to get back into it.

“It’s definitely warm, windy and pretty sandy out there so the track was tricky to navigate but it was just a good feeling being back on track for sure.”

Although the new McLaren now houses a Mercedes power unit, Ricciardo was wary of drawing any comparisons to other teams given the notorious difficulty in reading into times.

“Obviously, we don’t really have a benchmark or much to compare to at the moment," added Ricciardo.

"So we’re going to have to wait to Q3 in a couple of weeks [at the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix] but everything went smooth this morning so all good and happy.”

Pierre Gasly ended the session second quickest in his AlphaTauri AT02, just 0.028s off Ricciardo's time, albeit with the Frenchman out front in terms of mileage after completing 74 laps.

Echoing Ricciardo's comment, Gasly said: “Everything went pretty smoothly. Similar to Daniel, I’m just happy to be back in the car and putting some laps in. Everything was really smooth.

“Most important was to do many laps which is what we managed to achieve - over 70 laps – with no reliability issues.

"It is only the first morning but everything felt great inside the car and we will push a bit more over the next two days.”

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