Ricciardo feels he's settling in at 'cosy' Renault

It sounds as though Daniel Ricciardo is already settling in nicely at his new Formula 1 home.

The Australian decided to leave Red Bull at the end of last season after five years together. before that he started his time in F1 with spells at HRT and Toro Rosso.

It means that this year's move to Renault will mark his first campaign with a factory team. He'll be racing alongside Nico Hulkenberg, who could be every beat as tough to beat as last year's team mate Max Verstappen.

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But for right now it's all megawatt smiles for the Australian, who gives the impression that he couldn't be happier with his new situation.

"It feels cosy," he said after completing the first four days of official pre-season testing at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.

"I feel like I am comfortable with everyone," he continued. "It feels normal, walking into the meeting rooms and that. The debriefs, it feels familiar.

"The way everyone is engaging with me has been positive, and they are certainly trying to draw as much as they can out of me."

Ricciardo added that the team was particularly keen to ensure that he and Hulkenberg were of the same mind when it came to the development of the R.S.19.

"Nico and me are on same page," he felt. "Yesterday the main things we talked about were identical on where to improve the car. That's a positive, that we are both asking for the same things.

"It is hard to ask too much in terms of testing, as it never runs perfect - or I have never been in a perfect car in pre-season," the 29-year-old pointed out.

"The first couple of days were slow just getting laps in," he continued, referring to the DRS issue that hit the team's car at the start of testing.

"On Wednesday I got more in," he added. "I didn't get in as much on Thursday but it was more the runs we were doing - shorter, with more set up changes - so that took more time."

Even so, Ricciardo felt that the approach had yielded positive results. "It was quite useful for me, just going through set-ups.

"Feeling that they actually did something to the car, that was quite positive," he explained. "When a car is numb and does not respond to changes, that normally is not a good sign."

It was Hulkenberg who ended up setting the best time of anyone for the week with a lap of 1:17.393s late on Thursday. Ricciardo himself finished four tenths slower in the cooler morning conditions, which was third fastest for the day and fifth best for the week as a whole.

Ferrari had started the week fastest out of the gate before stepping back. With Mercedes and Red Bull having a subdued time in Spain, Toro Rosso then surprised by topping the times on Wednesday.

But Ricciardo felt it was still far too early to tell who was actually doing well.

"I feel like everybody has the ability to be quite quick this week," he commented. "Toro Rosso - even if that was with no fuel, a one minute seventeen is still quick.

"It is kind of just gauging where everybody is," he said. "I was having a look on track, just trying to see little things, how cars can take the kerbs or how the traction is."

Last year Ricciardo was a driver with one of the coveted top three teams, but at Renault he acknowledged that he will be back a step further back and in the thick of the much more crowded midfield battle.

"At Red Bull, you looked at two teams and that was pretty much it," he said. "There are a few more cars around us this year."

But while his hopes of contending for podiums and race wins might be less this season, that doesn't mean he's any less interested about what those top teams are up to in 2019.

"I am still very curious to know what Ferrari and Mercedes and those guys are doing," he admitted. "If I had to put money on it, Ferrari have been the most consistent all test.

"But even after next week we are not going to know until Melbourne," he added.

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