McLaren boss makes damning Daniel Ricciardo claim as Lando Norris outclassing Aussie

F1: Lando Norris says he didn’t think he’d make podium

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McLaren CEO Zak Brown says Daniel Ricciardo has not met “our expectations” in a blunt assessment of the Australian’s time with the team since joining in 2021. Ricciardo, 32, has endured a nightmare start to the new season, and despite a sixth placed finish in his home Grand Prix, lies 12th in the drivers’ standings on just 11 points having failed to register a top-10 finish in any of the other five races.

His inaugural year with the British team was also an underwhelming one, finishing eighth in the Championship. That was despite a memorable day in Monza, where ‘The Honey Badger’ led home teammate Lando Norris in a first ‘one-two’ for the team since 2010.

It was the later who outperformed his more esteemed partner over the course of the season though, finishing sixth in the table on 160 points – 45 more than Ricciardo. And that theme has continued this year, with the 22-year old on 39 points thus far.

That was after he overtook his partner en route to finishing eighth in Barcelona last Sunday, despite battling illness over the weekend. And now Brown, 50, has admitted the man who signed a lucrative long-term deal with the team earlier this year was undeniably their current no 1 driver.

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“Lando definitely has an edge,” he told Sky Sports’ Any Driven Monday. “We would obviously like to see Daniel much closer to Lando and have a good inter-team battle. Daniel is just not comfortable yet with the car, we’re trying everything we can. Again it was a disappointing weekend.”

And he conceded Ricciardo was yet to live up to the hype of his move from Renault: “Short of Monza and a few races, it’s generally not kind of met his or our expectations, as far as what we were expecting. And I think all you can do is keep working hard as a team, keep communications going, keep pushing and hope that whatever is not kind of clicking at the moment clicks shortly.”

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Brown did though, did also argue that the current gap between his two drivers was testament to the ability of Norris: “I think it also points to how good Lando is,” he added, also describing him as “one of the best drivers in the world at the moment.”

The new regulations in F1, designed to make racing more competitive, had raised the prospect of McLaren challenging for a title this season. However, thus far they have been way off the pace set by front-runners Ferrari and Red Bull.

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