Daniel Ricciardo is cautiously optimistic ahead of his Formula 1 return at the United States Grand Prix.
The Australian is returning after recovering from a hand injury sustained at August’s Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort, missing five races in the process.
Ricciardo said: “I’m expecting a car a little stronger than where I left it. But it’s going to be the third race I’ve done this year, so I’m still very green for this season.
“But in saying that, I’m not using that as an excuse. It’s just everything still feels new to me.”
The 34-year-old replaced Nyck De Vries at AlphaTauri ahead of the Hungarian Grand Prix after floundering for two years at McLaren in spite of his win at the 2021 Italian Grand Prix.
Ricciardo finished outside the points in P13 and 16th place in Hungary and Belgium for the Italian team.
The Australian went to the Singapore Grand Prix and heard encouraging signs about the AT04’s upgrades.
“I went out to Singapore and where they had some pretty big updates and that was actually a pretty positive weekend for the team. That looked good and drivers were saying that they could feel some good differences.”
Ricciardo shed light on his recovery which was harder than he expected: “I would say tougher than I thought, but I’m probably a bit of a wuss as well, so maybe not tougher than I thought.
“But I think it was really just when the accident happened and we were aware what bone broke, they seemed fairly okay with that bone in terms of, Oh, it’s a relatively easy one to fix.
“But then when we got the surgery done in Spain, we got further checks done and it was just the break was a lot worse than it first seemed.”
The eight-time Grand Prix winner admitted his road to recovery lasted longer than he thought.
“I think that’s what took a lot longer for the recovery and probably made it a little more painful for myself.”
The Australian has a mixed record at Circuit of the Americas, taking third place in 2014 and 2016 for Red Bull. But he has failed to finish twice in the Lone Star State through unreliability.
