Ricciardo broke his wrist in practice for Zandvoort's Dutch Grand Prix back in August, which halted his F1 return after just two races.
Ricciardo sat out five race weekends while being deputised by reserve driver Liam Lawson, but will return to the wheel of AlphaTauri's AT04 at this weekend US Grand Prix at the Circuit of the Americas.
"It was definitely frustrating watching the past few races," Ricciardo said.
"Especially as I’d gotten myself to a place where I was so ready to go again and race, and then I did two events and had to hit pause again, but actually, the time without racing went quite quickly."
Ricciardo revealed he was not yet at his "full potential" when testing his hand in a pre-Qatar simulator session, but he now feels he is fully ready to race again.
"My hand is much better, and the simulator was a useful way of assessing it," he explained.
"I tried it out in the week before Qatar, but I didn’t feel it was at full potential, so I spent the rest of that week in the UK, spending more time in the sim, and got to a point where I felt ready to go.
Source: Autosport