McLaren team principal Andreas Seidl has said he is willing to shoulder some of the responsibility for Daniel Ricciardo’s struggle to secure results in the past two seasons, which ultimately led to the team’s decision to terminate the Australian’s contract one year early.
On Wednesday, McLaren confirmed Ricciardo’s departure at the end of the season following a “mutual” agreement between team and driver.
Ricciardo’s exit is expected to make way for the arrival of Formula 2 champion Oscar Piastri, who has a deal in place with McLaren for next year but is waiting on approval from the FIA’s contract recognition board (CRB), which is set to rule on whether Alpine has a stronger claim to his services for next season.
Seidl refused to confirm the identity of Ricciardo’s replacement during a press conference on Wednesday, but said the decision to make a change in McLaren’s driver line-up was results driven.
“I think we have both commented many times about challenges we had on Daniel’s side of the garage regarding extracting the same performance the car as on Lando’s side,” Seidl said.
“Daniel has said many times that he just never felt fully comfortable in our car, especially when it was about pushing the car to the absolute limit. That was, in the end, causing the lap time difference to Lando.
“At the same time, we have technology that tells us Lando is an outstanding driver, so he [Ricciardo] was up against one of the best ones in the paddock. This in the end led us to the decision.
“He just didn’t get it to work in the end. For a driver being able to extract the performance from the car is a team effort between the driver and the team, so I just want to be clear as well that I fully take the responsibility of being in charge of the team that couldn’t find the magic in order to find these percentages that we were seeing from time to time.
“That’s why at the end we came to the conclusion that we go our separate ways next year.”
Asked about the awkward timing of the announcement ahead of this weekend’s Belgian Grand Prix and before Piastri’s deal is finalised, Seidl said it was better to confirm Ricciardo was leaving than leave the subject open to speculation in the second half of the season.
“From our point of view, it’s important to have clarity and transparency,” he added. “Once a decision is made, I think it’s best to…
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