Daniel Ricciardo's staggering response after 'awful' F1 drama

Daniel Ricciardo has offered a shock take on his latest Formula One disaster, after talking up the positives in the "awful" drama that saw him retire from the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.

With no points after a 14th-placed finish in the season-opening Bahrain GP, Ricciardo went from bad to worse in Saudi Arabia after a power failure forced him to retire with 15 laps remaining.

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In embarrassing scenes, Marshals were forced to push the 32-year-old's car out of the way after it came to a complete stop near the entry to pit lane after suffering engine troubles.

The Aussie driver had troubles in qualifying in Saudi Arabia, initially coming in at 12th spot before being handed a grid penalty for blocking Esteban Ocon.

However, Ricciardo looked a promising bet to finish among the points for the first time this season until calamity struck with 15 laps to go.

The Aussie was forced to retire after a power failure in his McLaren, with team principal Andreas Seidl apologising to the Aussie afterwards.

“Without his mechanical failure we would have had both cars home in the points. We’ll analyse the exact cause of his DNF when we’re home," Seidl said about Ricciardo's misfortunate.

Speaking about his latest F1 misfortune, the Aussie perhaps somewhat surprisingly, said there were positives to take out of the Saudi debacle.

“I lost drive so it could be a number of things, maybe drive shaft if I was to guess. But I’m no mechanic so don’t take my word for it,” he said.

“Obviously we could have had double points which is pretty awesome from where we were a week ago.

"It was looking alright. There are positives to take from the weekend, for sure. We still have a way to go but certainly some progress, which is nice.”

Pressed to elaborate on what those positives entailed, Ricciardo said he and the team were beginning to iron out the kinks in McLaren's new car for 2022.

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"The characteristics of this circuit seemed to help us, and although we weren't setting the timesheets alight, we had a bit more confidence in the car."

Ricciardo made the extraordinary revelation that the the opening race of the season was more like a testing event for himself and McLaren, as the team tries to figure out where improvements to the car need to be made.

The 32-year-old's attention now turns to his homeland as Ricciardo aims for his first points of the season at the Australian GP on April 10.

It will be the first time since 2019 that Melbourne's Albert Park has hosted a Grand Prix, with the Covid-19 pandemic wiping the event off the F1 calendar for two consecutive years.

"I'm excited to go home and compete there," Ricciardo said.

"For now, we'll keep chipping away. We can't promise amazing results yet, but we'll keep at it and I'm sure better things are on the horizon.

"Looking at Melbourne and the changes they've made, I think it is going to be quite flowing, and hopefully that suits us."

Albert Park's changes include wider corners at turns one, three and six, while chicanes at turns nine and 10 have been removed.

Officials say the changes will bring about faster lap times and more aggressive driving.

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