Daniel Ricciardo has revealed the advice that he would offer Oscar Piastri – the driver to replace him at McLaren – ahead of the rookie's F1 debut. With Ricciardo having faced struggles since joining the team in 2021, it was announced in August that the Australian and McLaren had mutually agreed to terminate his multi-year contract early, meaning that he would exit the squad at the end of 2022. Shortly afterwards, the confirmation came that Piastri would join the Woking-based outfit as Lando Norris' teammate following a dispute over his services with Alpine. Ricciardo was left without a seat on the 2023 grid and instead opted to take a reserve driver role with Red Bull, the team with which he claimed seven of his eight wins in Formula 1. While he won't have the opportunity to race against Piastri next season, Ricciardo has offered some words of advice for the youngster.
Ricciardo reveals advice for rookie Piastri
Ricciardo believes that a good approach for Piastri to adopt would be to take each race as it comes. "I think just go out and drive," Ricciardo told the Beyond The Grid podcast when asked if he had any advice for Piastri. "I know that sounds like a really lazy response, but it's just... go out and drive. Learn, be a sponge, but drive. "Don't set the bar too high for yourself. If you end up doing better than maybe what you thought, awesome, but just take it race by race. "As long as you're learning and you feel you're improving every race, then I think that's all you can kind of ask for yourself."
Ricciardo backs McLaren to support Piastri
When quizzed on whether McLaren boss Andreas Seidl and race engineer Tom Stallard – Ricciardo's former engineer – are the right people to nurture Piastri's talent, Ricciardo backed them to do so. "I think so," he explained. "I think also, even if we didn't quite get it right from my side with McLaren, I think they still would have learned a bunch from our two years, and maybe [learned from] things where we deviated or went a little wrong or sideways, whatever. "So I think all that knowledge can be passed on to Oscar. I would like to think they would kind of have a little bit of a head start from that point of view."
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