In 2021, while still struggling to adapt to his new team, Ricciardo was lapped at the Monaco GP by teammate Lando Norris, who ended up on the podium. It was a gigantic display of the gulf between them at the time, portrayed quite brutally in the final season of Drive to Survive .
Back then, it was all about Ricciardo adjusting to life in Woking . When F1 arrived at Monza, the Australian hit back at his critics by taking McLaren’s first victory in almost nine years, proving that he “never left”, as he said on the radio after the race.
This year, in Monaco, he suffered again, but the narrative seemed to have changed enormously. Ricciardo was 14th in qualifying and 13th in the race to end a week where much had been said about his future, in a way that did little to allay concerns about his position. This is no longer a new driver adjusting to a new team, but an experienced driver who knows what it’s like to win races and is performing well below expectations.
McLaren Racing chief executive Zak Brown ‘s comments at the start of Monaco race week seemed to light the fire a bit in Ricciardo, acknowledging that he was not living up to the team’s expectations. Ricciardo agreed with that statement, stressing that no one was more disappointed than he was with how this year had started, but made it clear that he had a three-year contract, before Brown revealed that there were “mechanisms” that could cause him to leave. broke prematurely.
The balance so far this season does not suggest that Ricciardo is more adapted to McLaren than 12 months ago. In seven races, he has only scored once – he was sixth in Australia – and was also sixth in the Imola sprint race before first lap contact with Carlos Sainz ruined his Sunday. Norris, meanwhile, has four times as many points (48-11) and has only failed to score once, in the Bahrain premiere, where both McLarens suffered with disastrous pace.
Daniel Ricciardo, McLaren MCL36
McLaren team principal Andreas Seidl is always pragmatic when it comes to facing difficult periods. Speaking after seeing Ricciardo eliminated in Saturday’s Q2 in Monaco, he asked the team to “just keep our heads down, keep looking at what we see in the data from weekend to weekend and see what we can do in the car, to help Daniel with a clear objective, to find those tenths that are missing at the end”.
“Daniel is committed, he has a lot of experience,” added Seidl. “And we are committed to making this work.”
Ricciardo has been open about his struggles to get the most out of the McLaren MCL36 so far this season, admitting in Monaco that “sometimes I can see clearly and sometimes not so much” where he is not comfortable with the car: “It has still been a little difficult for me to always be 100% with the car and feel like I can put out those… I’m trying to say those spectacular laps, but that sounds like I’m overestimating myself. But yeah, I mean putting out great laps.”
Ricciardo has always shone when he has had total confidence in the car, something that is especially needed on a circuit like the Monte Carlo street circuit. He knows what it takes to win there (he already has), so his thirteenth place finish this year, despite the fact that the rain offered the opportunity to alter things, was a rather gray result. He later said that “it wasn’t a strong weekend”, explaining that they weren’t “quick enough to make a big impact on anyone around us”.
Seidl added in Monaco that “it is also up to us to continue to develop the car for both drivers”, helping to get the best out of Norris and Ricciardo each weekend. “We’re not entirely happy if we finish fifth, for example, in qualifying,” Seidl said. “We all want to be part of the McLaren generation that fights again for victories and, together, for future world championships.”
“We just have to keep moving forward, in all areas of the team, in the way we work with Daniel as well, and then hopefully we can continue to take steps forward.”
McLaren can obviously draw on some of the work it did last year to help Daniel Ricciardo acclimatize to the car and improve its performance towards the end of the season. However, there is undoubtedly a race against time in this. If in another five or six rounds Ricciardo continues to struggle, and the transfer market rumors become more intense, both he and McLaren will no doubt find themselves swept up in that merry-go-round. Even with a contract in place, the speculation and distraction it can bring is something they’ll want to avoid.
Andreas Seidl, McLaren Team Principal
Suffering also means that even the smallest details are scrutinized more as possible signs of cracks in the relationship. One example came after Ricciardo’s crash in free practice in Monaco, when after being promptly asked by his race engineer, Tom Stallard , “is the car okay?” Ricciardo replied, “Erm, I’m fine. The car is not. Stallard then said that he had already seen the car and understood the answer, but the moment quickly went viral on social media. Ricciardo’s decision to put the acronym “FEA” – which stands for “Fuck You All” – on his helmet also drew attention online, with the Australian later explaining that it was a message to no one and that , however, was a way of cheering himself up by getting into the car.
McLaren already wanted to sign Ricciardo in 2018, when he unexpectedly left Red Bull to join Renault . The team finally got hold of him in 2021, and although he has brought them the only victory since 2012, there is no hiding that things have not worked out as planned. Ricciardo was supposed to be the one to help McLaren return to the greats, but especially this season he has fallen far short of that.
However, McLaren knows what Ricciardo is capable of. We saw him at Monza last year, where he was simply unbeatable in the race, even without Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton crashing. The potential and the hunger are still there, and McLaren remains committed to making the best of it.
Last year, Ricciardo used the summer break as an opportunity to reset and come back stronger in the second half of the season, which he did to great effect. This time, waiting until the triple-header at Spa-Zandvoort-Monza to make a change may be too late to prevent the buzz from becoming excessive, and lead to some soul-searching about Ricciardo’s future.
McLaren’s commitment is to make it work with Ricciardo. But if things don’t change quickly, your patience will surely be tested…
Daniel Ricciardo, McLaren MCL36
