McLaren bosses Andreas Seidl and Zak Brown have explained the decision to terminate Daniel Ricciardo’s Formula 1 contract.
Read More: Ricciardo confirms McLaren exit
The pair faced selected media, including Speedcafe.com, following news that the Australian will leave the team at the end of 2022.
Ricciardo signed for the team on a three-year deal at the start of 2021 and has now “mutually agreed” with the operation to end that a season year.
It is understood the agreement centred on a financial settlement between the two parties.
“I guess it’s not a secret that, if you look back at this last 18 months of our journey together, Daniel and McLaren, it’s clear that we haven’t achieved, despite highlights like a great win in Monza, the results that we wanted to achieve together,” said Team Principal Seidl.
“That’s why we had a lot of discussions, the last month, Zak, myself, together with Daniel, but in the end we have to acknowledge we didn’t make it work together despite all the commitment, which was there from Daniel’s side, from team’s side, despite all the effort we have put in.
“That’s why we have come to the decision that we wanted to make a change for next year and mutually agreed with Daniel that we terminate the contract early, at the end of this year.
“It’s clearly not the outcome we were all looking for, but at the same time, it’s important now to switch our focus then towards the next nine races together and give it all again as a team.
“Daniel will do the same and try to finish our relationship on a high, which will be important because we’re in a close battle with the Alpine, and we definitely want to get back into P4 on the constructors’ championship.”
Brown expressed his desire to see Ricciardo remain on the grid next season despite the uncertainty he now faces.
“We are very hopefully that Daniel will be on the grid next year,” he said.
“We don’t have any knowledge of what his plans may or may not be, other than his desire to be on the Formula 1 grid.
“But we’re certainly very hopeful from a sporting standpoint that he’s on the grid next year.”
Typically, when driver contracts are terminated early, one of two outcomes occur.
One outcome is whatever settlement is agreed is reduced by the value of whatever deal the driver is able to secure for the following season.
Negotiations between Ricciardo and McLaren are understood to have opened at USD 21 million.
Assuming that figure, should the 33-year-old land a drive, USD 21 million would be reduced by whatever remuneration figure he agrees with his new employer.
The other common outcome is the driver is simply paid to sit out the duration of the contract, as Kimi Raikkonen did when he left Ferrari at the end of 2009.
That was not a scenario ever discussed, according to Brown.
“It was never a discussion between Andreas and I, nor Daniel, to consider not allowing him to race in any other form of motorsport next year,” he said.
“And we hope he does. He is a friend of the family and always well be.
“I don’t believe we at McLaren, that restricting a race car driver from racing cars is certainly nothing McLaren would ever do.”
The underlying issue, according to Seidl, was Ricciardo’s inability to adapt to the McLaren package.
Being unable to extract single lap performance left the Australian compromised, with the situation deteriorating to the point where an early termination was regarded as the best outcome.
“He never felt that comfortable with our car last year, and also this year, despite the big changes of regulations,” Seidl explained.
“In the end, the movie these guys are seeing when they do these fast laps in these cars, and with the competitiveness that is around as well, if you do not feel fully one with a car, the deficit in lap time is coming up quickly.
“And if you’re then also up against a team-mate like Lando [Norris], who is a top guy in the paddock, you quickly see these gaps.
“Of course it was also to me a surprise that we didn’t get it to work because with everything Daniel has shown before, having won so many so many races as well, we definitely thought that the transition will be easier for him together with us.
“And therefore it’s obviously very unfortunate that we ended up in this situation.
“For a team, or any team on the grid, you want to have two drivers that are always in a position at each race weekend to extract the maximum from the package they have,” he added when asked if Ricciardo’s position was tenable for 2023.
“Of course the situation we have been in now with Daniel was not a not a good one with the struggles he had with our car, but at the same time, as I said before, we had some shared challenges and we’re also sharing the responsibility for not making it work.
“I will go far away from putting, let’s say, the blame on Daniel for our positions that we are currently having in the constructors’ championship, for example.”
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