Before scoring 12 precious points in Melbourne, McLaren was going through a rough patch in 2023. The initial two races saw them score no points with Lando Norris finishing P17 on each occasion. Before this, the Briton had never finished any lower than P15. However, Daniel Ricciardo refused to find any joy in the misery of the team he had an ugly split with just last year.

Ricciardo was under a contract with McLaren for 3 years. However, owing to a series of underwhelming performances, they mutually terminated the contract prematurely by one year. The entire situation worked out well for him as he reportedly took home a sweet $18 million severance pay. As he serves a year away from regular action as a Red Bull 3rd driver, the Honey Badger reveals the reason behind his smile worth a lot more.

Speaking with select media including Speedcafe ahead of the race in Melbourne, he said, “It’s nothing to do with …  I mean, they’ve only had two races.”

“It’s nothing to do with where they are and I don’t wish bad of them, of course. It’s definitely not like that.”

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The Papaya team replaced Daniel with his fellow Aussie, Oscar Piastri. The race in Albert Park turned out to be a pleasant outing for the rookie. He ended up scoring his first points in the championship. Oscar finished P8 after several hard-fought battles throughout the race in the midfield. The team is about to introduce some crucial changes to the car ahead of the race in Baku. Both drivers will surely hope to see better performance from then on.

Daniel Ricciardo is happy he is not driving for McLaren anymore

The whole idea behind Ricciardo taking a year’s hiatus was to end the cycle of terrible results. He wanted to come back stronger after realizing his love for the sport once again. That probably wouldn’t have happened if he continued with the Woking-based team, which is fielding a car arguably worse than last year’s.

Further in the interview, he said, “I’m definitely happy taking this year off because every year you start there’s a new car, there’s new hope and new optimism. But I know that nothing’s guaranteed in the sport.”

“If it was to be another difficult year, especially for me as an individual, I know that would probably drive me that step further away from the sport.”

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Do you think McLaren can extract better results from the changes they are about to introduce for the race in Azerbaijan?