Why McLaren is committed to ‘make it work’ with Ricciardo

In 2021, as he continued to fight to get up to speed with his new team, Ricciardo was lapped by podium-bound team-mate Lando Norris. It was a stark display of the gulf between them at the time, portrayed fairly brutally in the most recent season of Drive to Survive.

Back then, it was about Ricciardo getting to grips with life at Woking. Come Monza, he emphatically hit back at his critics by scoring McLaren’s first win for almost nine years, proving that he “never left”, to quote the Australian’s post-race radio message.

It felt like a similar story with his struggles this time around in Monaco, but the narrative felt like it had shifted massively. Ricciardo limped to 14th in qualifying and 13th in the race to end a week that had been dominated by chatter about his future in the kind of fashion that did little to dispel concerns over his position. This is no longer a new driver still adjusting to life at a new team; it’s a seasoned grand prix winner performing well below expectations.

McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown’s comments at the start of the Monaco race week appeared to light the fire under Ricciardo a bit, acknowledging he was not meeting the team’s expectations. Ricciardo agreed with that statement, stressing no-one was more disappointed with how this year had started than himself, but made clear he had a three-year contract in place – only for Brown to then reveal there were “mechanisms” in place that could lead to his departure before the end of the deal in 18 months’ time.

The form book so far this season does little to suggest Ricciardo is any further along in his progress at McLaren than he was 12 months ago. In six races, he has scored points just once – finishing sixth in Australia – as well as taking sixth in the Imola sprint before the first-lap clash with Carlos Sainz ruined his Sunday. Norris, meanwhile, has over four times as many points (48-11) and has failed to score just once in the Bahrain opener where both McLarens were…