Daniel Ricciardo may be changing his tune about e-sports.
A year ago, before switching to McLaren, the highly regarded Australian driver said of the growing trend for at-home, online racing: "I’ll leave that to the younger generations."
One of those younger, e-sports-savvy drivers is Ricciardo’s 21-year-old McLaren teammate Lando Norris, who is easily outpacing his decade-older rival in 2021.
When asked if he might therefore change his mind about the benefits of home simulators, Ricciardo admitted: "I have been thinking about it.
"At the beginning I always said I didn’t want one at home because I have better things to do on the weekends off," he told Auto Motor und Sport.
"But I don’t want to be narrow-minded either. Maybe it really helps, but on the other hand maybe you develop bad habits.
"But Max, Lando and Charles are also very active with it so maybe it brings something after all. It’s still not my thing, but I can’t ignore it," Ricciardo added.
What is clear is that Ricciardo’s problems with his 2021 car are not going to be quickly solved with developments.
"We simply need all the resources of the team to be getting ready for next year now," team boss Andreas Seidl told RTL.