What now?
The bullet is through the church: Daniel Ricciardo will leave the McLaren Formula 1 team after this season. The Australian actually still had a contract until next year, but was probably sent out early with a large bag of money.
It has been rumbling around Daniel Ricciardo and McLaren all summer and there have been rumors for some time that the team wants to get rid of the driver. Ricciardo is not performing as expected and that would be reason for McLaren to terminate his contract. Now the divorce is final and Max Verstappen’s former teammate will leave the team at the end of this year.
Ricciardo said in an official statement from McLaren that “discussions have taken place for several months” about his future in the team. According to him, the ‘joint decision’ has now been made that the roads will part after 2022. Ricciardo expresses his gratitude to the team and vice versa, with McLaren especially highlighting Ricciardo’s win at Monza last year. Despite the nice words back and forth, there is undoubtedly disappointment hidden behind the decision. Reportedly, McLaren even pays a generous amount to get out of the contract with the Australian.
It is not yet known who will succeed Ricciardo at McLaren. Very likely it will be F2 driver Oscar Piastri, also an Australian. Ricciardo’s future is also unknown at the time of writing. “I will announce my future plans in due course,” the 33-year-old said. He should probably hope for a return to the Alpine team. That is now because of the problem that protégé Piastri has suddenly taken a different course, while he should have followed the departing Fernando Alonso. Ricciardo drove for the then Renault team for two years before his time at McLaren. There he was more successful in terms of points and podium places than at McLaren.
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– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl