What will happen to Daniel Ricciardo?

Daniel Ricciardo living in a very complex situation. Arrived at McLaren in 2021 from Renault, where he didn’t see the winning project he wanted. Sa awakeningnext to a young man lando norris, is emerging as the great leader of the present where the British team wants to continue to thrive in search of long-awaited successes in the years to come. However, things didn’t go as expected at McLaren, or as the driver himself thought, and now Ricciardo’s future is more in the air than ever.

In 2021, Daniel He was one of the drivers who turned the teams hardest to adapt to his new car, with a driving philosophy that was very different from his predecessors. Red Bull and Renault. He found it difficult to comprehend the reason, until he seemed to lift his head and began to see the light at the end of the tunnel on his victory in Monaco 2021. But it will finally end world in eighth position, with 115 points, 45 behind his teammate lando norriswhich is 6th with 160 points.

In 2022, the scenario changed. With a completely new car for everyone due to regulatory change, Daniel Ricciardo had the opportunity to show his class along McLarenbut in the first 7 races the Australian lost, far from the level he had shown red bull.

Norris earned 81.40% of McLaren’s points

This course, 81.40% of the points scored by McLaren were earned by Lando Norris, who ranked 7th in the World Championship with 48 points. Meanwhile, Ricciardo was 11th with just 11 points. But the worst are the sensations. At the wheel of a McLaren that still needs to be improved hard to fight to lead the central zone and aspire for more, Lando crushed his teammate in every way. The Briton won the qualifying duel 6-1, as Daniel was only able to beat Lando in Barcelona’s ‘qualy’, a weekend in which the Englishman suffered tonsillitis.

Despite this, Lando clearly caught up with Daniel in the race on Sunday, an appointment where he got in the car after vomiting. And the differences in ‘qualy’ are enormous. With the exception of Saudi Arabia, where Lando beat Ricciardo by 0 “122 in Q2, and with the exception of the aforementioned appointment in Barcelona, ​​in up to 4 classifications the time Norris achieved was more than 6 tenths more. great.

In the race things do not improve. Norris only missed the Top 10 in the first test in Bahrain due to initial reliability problems with his vehicle, and in Miami due to retirement. And in addition, he was able to climb the podium in Imola. For Daniel, on the other hand, his best result was 6th in Australia. The rest, a retirement and 5 career out of points, of which he is in the last four races.

“I have a contract”

“I have a valid contract. But I don’t want to be 14th. I didn’t run, let’s put it that way”, commented Daniel Ricciardo. after the ‘quality’ of Monaco to respond to rumors that drove him to McLaren. Despite this, they assured the English team that there were “mechanisms” so that the link between the Australian and Woking teams would end sooner than expected.

“Our strategy is just to do it”, citing Team Principal Andreas Seidl. For his part, Mclaren’s CEO, Zak Brown, is stronger.

“There are mechanisms where we are committed to each other and then there are mechanisms where we are not”Zak pointed to ‘Sky Sports’. “I’ve talked to Daniel about it, we’re not getting the results we both hoped for. But we’re both going to keep pushing,” he added.

“He showed Monza (Italian GP 2021) that he can win races. We also need to continue developing our car, it can’t win races, but we want to see it more on the grid. It will be seen. let’s see how things develop, ”Zak added.

Ricciardo’s poor results, his huge difference compared to his teammate Lando Norris, and the difficulty of finding a way forward in his second year on the team mean Ricciardo looks more on the outside than on the inside of the British team and let the rumor spread. To occupy his seat, among the names that come out, is that of Fernando Alonso, great friend of Zack Brown for the second stage of Oviedo in Woking.