“I was honestly just not like my happy self”: Daniel Ricciardo opens up about his ‘depressed’ time at McLaren

Red Bull reserve driver Daniel Ricciardo mentioned that he wasn't entirely happy in his two years with McLaren.

The Aussie driver joined the iconic British team at the start of the 2021 season but could not showcase his true skills apart from a couple of races in his time with the team that came to an end at the end of 2022.

In his interview with Race Fans, Daniel Ricciardo said:

“I don’t want to like go too far and be like, ‘yeah, I was depressed’ or whatever ut I certainly wasn’t always eating as much. I think I just wasn’t feeling right. I was honestly just not like my happy self, not my normal self."

"I think as well so much was going on last year, I could feel like I had this kind of nervous energy inside me. I didn’t have an appetite as much. I was just a bit scattered. So yeah, there was certainly some of that. So I was a little thin.”

He added:

“I’m getting enough of a break where I feel certainly refreshed and happy again. But it’s kind of also reminded of me how cool this environment was and what it’s like to be in a place that I feel I can hopefully get back to a podium.”

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"I was trying to obviously adjust to that car but also the sim" - Daniel Ricciardo

The Red Bull reserve driver stated that it took him time to adjust to the simulator at the Milton Keynes factory.

Daniel Ricciardo said:

“Obviously I can’t talk in detail on sims, because it’s a bit of a sensitive topic but every team’s sim is a little bit different. So there’s adjusting to the actual car – which obviously every team has a different car – but also the sim is different across teams, so there’s also a bit of adjusting to the sim."

“The first day at Red Bull when I got back in, I was trying to obviously adjust to that car but also the sim. It definitely took me more laps than I wanted at first and I think that it was probably looking like, ‘Oh, he’s driving different’ or ‘he’s got weird habits’ or whatever. I think that it was when I was there that first day that I realized I’d lost some confidence in myself."

Hopefully, for Daniel Ricciardo, along with his promotional and sim duties, the Australian would soon find himself driving the RB19 on the track as well.