Daniel Ricciardo has one more year left on his contract, but his stay at McLaren seems as likely as Halley's comet being delayed
Another race gone and gone has left audiences and critics alike with one question on their minds: what happens to Daniel Ricciardo? It's a question that has made itself present more than any other in Formula 1 since the start of 2022, so this analysis will look at the situation with another related question: does it matter? It's June of the year 2022, Ricciardo is approaching 30 races aboard McLaren, and the first answer remains a mystery. The answer to the second question is clear: it doesn't matter.
The vast majority of the championship is still to come, but it is very difficult to imagine a realistic scenario that ends other than Ricciardo's resignation at the end of the year.
The Australian has a contract until the end of the 2023 season - that's how he signed on, for three years, when he was contracted for 2021. The first year was bad, with notorious superiority of Lando Norris and in which Daniel saved himself with the victory in Italy.
There was a way to diminish the strength of the bad year. It was the last championship with that car project that Norris worked on for so long and that Ricciardo was trying to adjust with the car in motion, but 2022 would be the year of the new project and there, yes, it would be his time to shine. A project born from scratch and with his help, the competition and his high salary would be justified.
Well, 2022 is here and Ricciardo has been even worse. All right, McLaren doesn't have as good a car now as it did at the beginning of last year - it is still fourth, but the beginning of 2021 was more impressive. After seven races in 2021, Daniel had 32 points - against Norris' 76 - and scored in six races. In this year in which McLaren starts by scoring less, it has 11 against Norris' 48, the projection does not follow. Of these 11, three points were earned in the sprint race at Imola. In the real races, on Sundays, Ricciardo scored eight points: all in sixth place in Australia - where Lando was fifth. Yes, he scored a point in one of seven races.
The contract situation makes things thorny for the future, but there is really no great controversy or doubt to understand how McLaren thinks.
"Lando [Norris] definitely has an advantage. We would obviously like to see Daniel [Ricciardo] closer to Lando in terms of performance to have a good internal race. But Daniel is just not comfortable with the car yet. We are trying everything. It was disappointing again," CEO Zak Brown said after the Spanish GP.
"With the exception of Monza and a few other races, [Ricciardo] has not lived up to his expectations and ours. I think all you can do is keep working hard as a team, keep the internal communication going and keep accelerating, hoping that what's not fitting in at the moment, will fit in as soon as possible," he followed.
It was the strongest criticism from McLaren in this year and a half. A team that, by the way, had unusual patience with the driver who, for those who have a good memory, was called to attention by Cyril Abiteboul, then Renault boss, in his first race for the French team, in March 2019.
Ricciardo admitted that Brown was correct in his criticism. "It's not a lie, it's quite true," the Australian told British magazine Autosport. "First of all, I don't take the comments personally. My skin is tanned, beautiful and thick too. Nobody is going to be harder on me than myself," he assured.
"I don't want to run tenth or 12th. Sometimes it's been a test in terms of trying to lift myself up and grow with this car. But we're working together for that. The team wants it, I want it, and we're working on that goal. There have been races where I've been good, but honestly, I'm still working on it. I would love to say that I'll be 0s5 faster every race from now on, and I'm working towards that. But it's a small progress still," he pointed out.
The driver defended himself when asked about the possibility of leaving McLaren at the end of the year and made a point of remembering that he has a contract until December 2023. But this is Formula One and everybody knows there are a million ways out of contracts. For McLaren, it will be a relief to leave such a pulpy deal: go for Pierre Gasly or some youngster from Indy, you will surely spend much less.
Doubt it? Ask Sergio Pérez, dropped by Racing Point/Aston Martin with a year left on his contract months after acting in a key way to prevent the company's bankruptcy. Contracts are formalities.
And it is also formality that the Ricciardo-McLaren saga will conclude with the expected end: the dismissal and exclusion from the face of the earth of the third year of the deal. Not even tracks where it is historically strong, like Monaco, help it save itself. The race at the Côte d'Azur featured yet another indefensible performance from the veteran.
So Ricciardo can't stay at McLaren? He can even if he makes a miraculous recovery and has a remaining 2022 as the best years of his career. If he is only good from now on, something that is already starting to sound almost impossible, it won't be enough: he needs to be brilliant. And it won't be brilliant, it's a sequence of events that wouldn't make any sense.
Ricciardo will be fired. McLaren will not carry that financial burden for another year. Then, from there on, the team will make its choices and Ricciardo will have to see where he fits in F1. But this story is approaching a final chapter. Too bad it will be such a long waltz towards the inevitable precipice.