Mark Hughes now says something is ‘fundamentally wrong’ with 34-year-old F1 driver

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Three key retirements during the Australian Grand Prix provided some unlikely opportunities for teams at the front and the back of the grid.

Carlos Sainz capped off a fantastic return to action by winning the third race of his Formula 1 career.

Unfortunately, others failed to take advantage, and on The Race Podcast, expert and journalist Mark Hughes identified one driver who looked out of sorts in Melbourne.

It was a fantastic race for Ferrari as they closed the gap to Red Bull in the Constructors’ Championship.

Haas recorded an unlikely double-points finish and Yuki Tsunoda scored the points for Visa Cash App RB since adopting their new identity.

However, Daniel Ricciardo had a tough time at his home race in Australia and Hughes thinks the 34-year-old is having a crisis of confidence.

Daniel Ricciardo’s crisis of confidence continues in Australia

The last few years have been tough for Daniel Ricciardo and his Formula 1 career looked all but over at this point 12 months ago.

After switching Renault for McLaren, he never got to grips with the car during two years with the Woking-based team.

He was outperformed by Lando Norris – despite securing the team’s last win in Monza – and was ultimately replaced by fellow countryman Oscar Piastri.

Nyck de Vries’s struggles last season offered Ricciardo an opportunity with AlphaTauri, but two races later he was back out of the car following a hand injury.

On his return, he showed decent pace but Yuki Tsunoda’s familiarity with the car gave him the upper hand.

However, after a full pre-season, the Japanese driver still has the upper hand over his more experienced teammate.

Hughes has suggested that Ricciardo might be having a bit of a crisis and his performance in Australia didn’t help matters.

A mistake in qualifying saw him start in 18^th and despite some decent driving, he couldn’t earn his first point of the season.

Combined with Tsunoda’s 7^th-place finish, it’s no wonder that his future on the grid is beginning to be questioned.

Ricciardo fighting to save his Formula 1 career

Talking about the Visa Cash App RB drivers, Hughes said: “Helmut Marko has questioned his [Yuki Tsunoda’s] race speed, he’s fallen out of the points the first couple of races but that could just as easily be a car trait.

“The trouble is, how you benchmark him when the other driver is clearly having some sort of crisis.

“That’s not a Red Bull-era Daniel Ricciardo performance, that’s much more like his troubled McLaren time.

“When you’re whole tenths off, nearly half a second off there’s something fundamentally wrong, so you can’t really measure where Tsunoda’s at.

“It could be that he’s operating at a very, very high level but until we see him alongside a Verstappen or a Leclerc or someone like that, it’s very difficult to quantify it.”

Ricciardo left confused by his performance this season

You don’t win eight Formula 1 Grand Prix unless you’re very talented, making Ricciardo’s drop-off this season even more perplexing.

Ricciardo admitted in Australia that the gap between him and Yuki Tsunoda was ‘puzzling’ and any crisis of confidence in his own ability or how the car feels will be playing its part.

It’s been said that he’s a ‘worrying amount’ slower than his teammate and unless there’s a fundamental problem with his car, he needs to resolve that quickly.

His aim of driving for Red Bull in the future looks like a fantasy right now and he needs to up his game to make sure he’s still on the grid by the end of the year and beyond.