For two seasons Ricciardo and McLaren tirelessly worked to make the Australian comfortable in the Woking squad's machinery.
McLaren's current lineage of cars has a notorious low-speed weakness, which the team still hasn't been able to address, and its drivers have been forced to compromise their braking and cornering style more than they would like.
While Lando Norris, and now Oscar Piastri, have been able to drive around the weaknesses to score a string of podiums at circuits that suit the current MCL60, Ricciardo never managed to overcome the discrepancy between how its predecessors needed to be driven and his own driving style.
Fast forward to the second part 2023 and AlphaTauri, which has handed Ricciardo a lifeline after half a season on the sidelines, has made similar observations to McLaren about the Australian's needs.
"We can see that he drives the car differently to some of the other drivers that we've worked with, and with Yuki [Tsunoda]," head of trackside engineering Jonathan Eddolls explained on Sunday before the Mexico GP.
"The way he attacks the corners, the way he hits the brakes. The driving style is different."
But while Ricciardo chased his tail at McLaren to reduce his deficit to Norris, which eventually proved counterproductive and sapped him of confidence, he now appears to have found a car that does give him the flexibility to deploy his natural driving style.
Source: Autosport