Daniel Ricciardo‘s admission that simply finishing in the points at this weekend’s Australian Grand Prix has revealed exactly how far off the pace his McLaren team is.
Having finished third in the constructors’ championship in 2020 and fourth in 2021, McLaren has struggled in the opening two rounds of the 2022 season.
Ricciardo is yet to score a point, having finished 14th in Bahrain before retiring in Saudi Arabia, while teammate Lando Norris has fared little better, finishing 15th and seventh.
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Speaking ahead of this weekend’s race at a revised Albert Park circuit in Melbourne, the Australian isn’t expecting any major improvement.
“Looking at Australia, it’s going to be flowing and quite fast again, especially the changes they made,” Ricciardo said.
“So perhaps that comes to us again and maybe we could fight for points. I know that’s not aiming very high but that’s really all we can aim for, for now.
“Until we get some big updates, I think anything inside the top 10 we’ll take as a little victory for now.”
Having been so far off the pace in Bahrain, Ricciardo is at least hopeful that the improved showing in Saudi Arabia is a sign of things to come, even if the team is nowhere near challenging the leaders.
“The [Saudi Arabia] weekend, I would put it down to just circuit characteristics, so I’m really hoping that Bahrain was a bit of a bogey situation for us,” he added.
“We cleaned up a few things in terms of stuff with the brakes that we had issues with in Bahrain. But I think it was just a circuit that suited us.”
Earlier this week McLaren boss Andreas Seidl conceded the team was simply off the pace.
“In the end, we have to accept that other teams did a better job than us over winter,” he said.
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