Race engineer, Simon Rennie has echoed Christian Horner’s declare that on returning to the Crimson Bull household this 12 months, Daniel Ricciardo was totally different to the person who had left the crew in 2018.
“It was clear when he got here again that he had picked up some habits that we did not recognise because the Daniel that had left us two or three years earlier,” mentioned Horner at the start of the season following the Australian’s return to Crimson Bull as reserve driver.
Talking on the Speaking Bull podcast, Ricciardo’s former race engineer at Crimson Bull, Simon Rennie shed extra gentle on the change the Australian had undergone in his time since leaving the crew for Renault after which McLaren.
Speaking about his return to Crimson Bull, Ricciardo mentioned: “The very first thing I did in 2023 was a pair sim classes, and that was, for positive, only for me to get again within the groove, to be taught the automobile, however simply form of get again into my movement.”
Nonetheless, at this level Rennie interrupted.
“I do not assume that was as simple as you thought it was going to be,” mentioned the Briton. “When he first got here again I used to be fairly shocked.
“Understanding Daniel, when he got here again, I did not say this on the time, that he was virtually like… you are undoubtedly not as assured as I do know you might be, and also you have been just a bit bit hole in a method.
“It felt such as you have been doubting your self just a little, and also you have been,” he added. “You have been a bit involved about whether or not you possibly can do it once more, as a result of clearly you’d had good success with us, and you have had the final couple years have not been fairly profitable.
“It did not essentially click on straightaway within the simulator,” he continued. “It took you that first day that we did collectively, I do not know should you left with feeling or not after that first day, you continue to appeared just a little bit uncertain of all of it.
“And then you definitely went away, had a little bit of day off at house, after which subsequent time you are in, it is such as you have been a bit extra bouncy. Possibly you had extra time to consider it, you have been a bit extra like, say, midway again to being your self.
“Then we had day within the simulator and I believe you simply drove it naturally, such as you needed to do, and it simply type of clicked just a little bit. The boldness from then snowballed and also you constructed, and constructed, and constructed, after which by the tip of that day, or the subsequent day, you felt like, ‘yeah, he is again once more’.
“However it was actually mad, the primary time we noticed him once more, you have been a bit subdued. It is good to see him again.”
