Ricciardo 'banging drum' for MCL36 character change

Daniel Ricciardo has revealed he was 'beating the drum pretty loudly' in order to change the characteristics of McLaren's cars for the new MCL36.

The Australian joined the Woking-based team for 2021 in one of the most highly anticipated driver switches in recent history, only for form to elude him in the early stages of the season.

It was clear that Ricciardo was struggling to acclimatise with the characteristics of the MCL35M, although fortunes did improve after the summer break with victory in the Italian Grand Prix.

F1's regulation reset has offered a chance to correct any issues with the car and asked at the team's launch how loudly he was banging the drum of change, Ricciardo replied: "Pretty loudly I guess.

"I am not the guy to walk into the room and throw things around and say this has to change, I will do it productively I guess.

"From very early on, I think from when I first went into the car, I was relaying information of 'this is different to the Renault or the Red Bull', so I was really kind of feeding information and as we were more races deep in, I was still obviously not doing as well as I thought so I was beating a little bit louder and a little bit harder.

"The positive was Lando was also in agreement to that and he would have also liked to have had these attributes with the car and what we can do with it.

"There is a lot of emphasis on that for this year's car but it is also a whole new car so we don't really know if that is also the best way to drive this new car.

"Long story short, I was beating it, but the team also acknowledged that 'this is a strength of Daniel, he has proven to be very fast so we also want to give him this so we can also get the best out of Daniel'."

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