Zak Brown admits the Daniel Ricciardo ‘headlines’ hid a larger problem at McLaren in 2022

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Daniel Ricciardo was a superstar signing for the McLaren team in 2021. But after all the excitement, the move ended up instigating the Australian’s decline.

Ricciardo made the bombshell decision to leave Red Bull at the end of 2018, and while Renault weren’t as competitive as he expected, he showed he was still one of F1’s best drivers during his brief stint with the French manufacturer.

After finishing in the top 10 in 2019, Ricciardo was fifth in 2020 with two podium finishes – still the best showing by any of their drivers since they returned to the sport in 2021. He looked like the perfect replacement when Carlos Sainz left McLaren to join Ferrari.

But aside from a memorable win at the Italian GP – McLaren’s first since 2012 – Ricciardo’s stint was a total disappointment. He was outclassed by Lando Norris, particularly in his second season, and he ended up leaving before the end of his contract.

Zak Brown reveals the ‘lightbulb’ moment he had during Daniel Ricciardo’s final season

Reflecting on Ricciardo’s second and final season on the Beyond the Grid podcast, Brown said he could see ‘underneath’ the ‘headlines’ around The Honey Badger.

With Andreas Seidl still at the helm, Brown questioned whether McLaren had the right ‘teamwork mindset’. He was particularly alarmed by the response to a failed upgrade at Paul Ricard.

At the end of the season, Seidl left McLaren, and Brown persuaded Andrea Stella to take over as team principal. Stella has now delivered back-to-back constructors’ titles.

“’22, we have the headlines of our driver challenges with Daniel, who’s a great guy,” Brown said. “Unfortunately, it just didn’t work. I saw underneath that.

“I didn’t like the direction the team was going and the leadership around what we do today, incremental gains, never being satisfied, never getting to perfection because you can always do better, but always chasing it – that type of incremental teamwork mindset.

“All the headlines were Daniel and driver issues… we brought a big upgrade to the French Grand Prix in ’22, and they didn’t work. The response wasn’t the response I was expecting.

“Forget about the fact that technically I can’t solve that problem, but I can look at the people I’m expecting to solve that problem and go, ‘Did you guys not just see what happened on Sunday? It was kind of like business as usual on Monday’. That was my lightbulb moment.

“We made those changes at the end of the year.”

How much did McLaren pay Daniel Ricciardo not to race?

James Hinchcliffe reckons that Ricciardo finds it ‘tough’ watching McLaren. Had he kept the seat for another couple of years, he would have been in a position to fight for race wins.

Based on Ricciardo’s unconvincing form at AlphaTauri/Racing Bulls following his 2023 comeback, he wouldn’t necessarily have maximised the opportunity anyway.

McLaren paid Ricciardo nearly £24m to break his contract, one of the largest such agreements in F1 history. After losing his RB seat to Liam Lawson just over a year ago, he now considers himself retired from racing.

Zak Brown sent a heartfelt message to Ricciardo after his final race, suggesting that any strain on their relationship has now been lifted.