Alan Jones tells 8-time race winner he needs to stop ‘blaming the car’ for his issues

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Former F1 world champion Alan Jones has told Visa Cash App RB driver Daniel Ricciardo that he needs to stop blaming his car when he hasn’t lived up to expectations.

Daniel Ricciardo’s return to Formula 1 hasn’t gone entirely to plan, with injury and inconsistent form affecting his comeback.

Speaking to the Herald Sun, Jones has spoken about the eight-time race winner’s recent performances and what he needs to do going forward to succeed.

Jones tells Ricciardo to stop blaming his car

The first two races of the 2024 season have gone as expected for Daniel Ricciardo.

He was tipped by Ted Kravitz to potentially challenge for podiums and while that may happen later in the year, right now he’s nowhere near that level.

Ricciardo has already been given the hurry-up by Helmut Marko as his Red Bull aspirations appear to have taken a hit.

In fact, Alan Jones believes Ricciardo’s best days might already be behind him and now he wants him to stop blaming the car when things aren’t going right.

He’s been outpaced by Yuki Tsunoda this year and had to be let through in Bahrain which caused plenty of friction with the RB team.

There’s already a worry at this early stage of the campaign that Ricciardo’s time in Formula 1 might be running out.

He’s got the perfect opportunity at the weekend at his home race to prove to everyone that they’re writing him off way too soon.

Ricciardo under pressure at RB

Speaking about the two Australian drivers on the grid, Jones said: “One is going extremely well and the other is going fairly ordinary.

“I think (Ricciardo) would even agree with that. Bad luck, or otherwise, I’m sure Daniel would like to have had better results than what he has had.

“At the end of the day, we can’t be blaming the car all the time, which has been a bit of a tendency in the past.

“I would love to see Daniel go extremely well in Melbourne, I would like to see Daniel go extremely well period.

“But I just think that his luck is going to have to change or he is going to have to lift his game if he has got any chance of getting back in that Red Bull team or getting back into a more competitive car.

“He (Ricciardo) is treading water. He really needs to have some very good results and put up a good show, he can’t be dwelling down where he is.”

Ricciardo would likely counter Jones’s claim that he keeps blaming the car by pointing to the 41-second pit stop he sat through in Jeddah.

While it didn’t completely ruin his race because of Lance Stroll’s crash, it did mean he was stuck towards the back of the Kevin Magnussen train as he helped teammate Nico Hulkenberg score his first point of the season.

Driving at his home race on Sunday morning will only increase the interest in how Ricciardo gets on and he needs to beat Tsunoda to release some of the pressure on him.