3 Reasons why Daniel Ricciardo performed great in 2022 F1 Mexico GP

Daniel Ricciardo had a great race in Mexico as he drove his McLaren to P7 in the race. This comes against the backdrop of the Australian not having the best F1 season. So much so that he's lost his seat with McLaren for the 2023 season to prodigy Oscar Piastri.

Ricciardo started the F1 Mexican GP in 11th and had a bad start to the race that dropped him further in the order.

However, he pulled off an impressive overtake on Guanyu Zhou, placing himself in a perfect situation where he could manage his pace in clean air. When pitstops came, Ricciardo opted to run a long stint on medium tires to stay in working range. His decision came despite Lando Norris, Fernando Alonso, and Esteban Ocon all pitting early and switching to hard tires.

When the driver pitted for soft tires, the race came to him. The hard tires were not the best in terms of pace, but multiple teams committed their second stints on them. Daniel Ricciardo, holding more than a second per lap advantage over these cars, ultimately cruised past them to P7.

So impressive was his speed that he was able to pull out a 10-second gap to Esteban Ocon and nullify the penalty he had received for his clash with Yuki Tsunoda.

How was he able to pull off this drive? Let's find out!

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#1 Daniel Ricciardo had a strong pace even in the first stint

It wasn't something that caught everyone's eye during the race, but Daniel Ricciardo had a strong pace throughout the Grand Prix. The Australian's overtake of Guanyu Zhou was in many ways a vintage Ricciardo move.

Following the overtake, he was able to slowly close the gap to leading midfield drivers including Fernando Alonso, Valtteri Bottas, Esteban Ocon, and Lando Norris.

While Norris pulled into putts as he was starting to suffer from degradation on his medium tires, Ricciardo stayed the course. His tire management saw him pass Norris, Tsunoda, and Bottas, who pitted for fresh hard tires.

At no point was Ricciardo not having a competitive pace against his competitors.

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#2 The move to soft tires for the second stint was perfect

After FP1 on Friday, the way teams struggled with the hard tires did have clear parallels that could be drawn to the hard tires in Hungary earlier this year.

It was thus strange to see so many teams opting for them despite knowing that track temperatures would fall further in the second half of the season.

It was this decision to use hard tires that hurt even Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton's victory bid. The gap between Hamilton and Max Verstappen was around six seconds when the former came out of the pits. By the time the race ended, the gap had more than doubled.

Daniel Ricciardo, however, was able to stretch his first stint to open the window to pit for soft tires in the second stint. As soon as Ricciardo came out of the pits, he was more than a second quicker than everyone around him.

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#3 Daniel Ricciardo had luck on his side

Daniel Ricciardo's stint on soft tires was stunning to say the least, but it was not without a helping hand from the rub of the green.

First of all, bumping Yuki Tsunoda out of the race should've cost the Australian more than just the 10-second penalty that he got. The penalty should've been more not only because he ended Tsunoda's race, but also because the move was far too aggressive.

After disposing of Tsunoda, Ricciardo made short work of Bottas and Norris, which helped him jump to P9. After this, Ricciardo was able to cruise his way past both the Alpines of Esteban Ocon and Fernando Alonso.

Another piece of the Australian's luck could be attributed to the fact that both Alpines were struggling with their power units. The fact that it only took Ricciardo a handful of laps to pull out more than 10 seconds over Ocon was a clear indication of the same.

Nonetheless, all things considered, Daniel Ricciardo still had an impressive outing in Mexico.