The embattled Daniel Ricciardo has revealed a reassuring catch-up with the McLaren boss and declared “we want to do it together”.
Speculation of an early departure from the Surrey-based team intensified when McLaren chief executive Zak Brown said in May that Ricciardo hadn’t met his expectations, while revealing “mechanisms” in his contract meant the Australian could be released early.
The 32-year-old crossed from Renault – now Alpine – to McLaren ahead of the 2021 world championship, and he’s contracted to the papaya-coloured team until the end of 2023, but his struggles put him in serious danger of being pushed out before the completion of his deal.
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“Yeah, so, firstly we’ve spoken, we’ve had a catch-up,” Ricciardo told reporters at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
“The clarity is clear for us moving forward, my contract is clear with the team until the end of next year, I’m fully committed.
“I have the full support of the team, and we want to do it together.”
Ricciardo finished eighth in the 2021 standings and has plummeted even further this season, with the Western Australia sitting 11th on the cusp of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
As Ricciardo has stumbled, teammate Lando Norris has thrived.
The 22-year-old Englishman finished sixth in the standings in 2021 and is placed seventh after seven rounds this season.
Ricciardo has been open about the difficulty he’s had in trying to adjust to the McLaren cars: the MCL35 in 2021 and the MCL36 this year.
He was hit with another challenge in his adjustment phase when Formula 1 introduced its revolutionary ground-effect cars for 2022.
But he said he hadn’t stressed too much about Brown’s comments.
“I think stripping it back to the core, I still know what I can do, I still believe I have it,” Ricciardo said.
“It’s not a place of like low self-confidence or low self-esteem.
“I think in this sport that everything operates at such a high level and if something’s a little bit out of tune it can have a carry-on effect.
“So it’s really just for me to get back in that place where I’m fully in tune with the car, and then it’ll come.”
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