McLaren is confident Daniel Ricciardo will find his feet after a tricky first two races at the team.

While showing solid single-lap pace in qualifying, the Australian has been outclassed by teammate Lando Norris on race day both in Bahrain and at Imola.

In the wet conditions two Sundays ago, Ricciardo was asked to let Lando through quite early on, with the Briton going on to finish third.

And Daniel admitted he had no response to the impressive pace Norris had once in front.

“I think that’s where I’ve got to swallow my pride," he told Sky Sports. “I honestly think the team were fair enough, they gave me time to try to show my pace.

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“There were some laps where I had a bit and could kind of do a decent time, and to be honest where I did push I did start to kill a bit the right front [tyre] so they gave me the time required to show what I had.

“Today it wasn’t enough, so I’m not going to get into any fisticuffs, it was fair enough.”

While some have criticised Ricciardo, McLaren boss Andreas Seidl was quick to defend the 31-year-old's performance.

“I won’t say it is a surprise,” Seidl said. “We know it is not just straightforward to jump from one car into another one, and only have one and half days of testing.

“There is no point about complaining about one and a half days of testing because it was an agreement between all the teams in order to have only one test to save costs. So, no point going into that too much.

“These cars are complex, and to find these last two, three, four, tenths, but also make the difference when how comfortable they are to push these cars to the limit, that is not straightforward to find and get out of these cars.

“That takes time. It is not a surprise it is part of the process of integrating a new driver, and with the experience Daniel has, in the experience we have within the team, it is just a matter of a few more race weekends before Daniel is fully comfortable in our car.”

Given the rule changes coming for 2022 however, Seidl did call on F1 to ensure more testing was planned ahead of next season.

“We all hope that next year we go back to more testing days again, especially knowing that we will have completely new cars next year,” he said.

“It makes sense to do more tests, with a good gap in between in order to digest what you have learned from the first test, and also to be able to react with these brand-new cars.

“In general I think that is also something that I’ve discussed in the past like when Carlos [Sainz] was joining us from Renault. And we have seen from other drivers, all these drivers are very talented and have a lot of experience, and they adapt very quickly and straightaway.”