“F1 Is a Real Mental Game”: Former McLaren Driver Advocates for Daniel Ricciardo in the Thick of Hurtful Comments

There are some serious doubts about the partnership between Daniel Ricciardo and McLaren for the future. The Aussie driver has not performed consistently since he joined the team at the beginning of the 2021 season. It seems that the team might be getting a bit frustrated by their star drivers’ inconsistency and inability to get comfortable with the car.

Recently, McLaren CEO Zak Brown came forward to criticize Ricciardo for his struggles. But according to former world champion Jenson Button, the team should always protect its drivers and not throw them under the bus.

Former world champion not pleased with McLaren CEO over his recent comments

Button mentioned he will not argue with the comments of the American. But he found it odd that he criticized his driver so publicly, and revealed that Daniel must have been hurt.

“Zak is his own man and I can’t change his thoughts and what he says, but I was surprised that he came out and said that. Everyone with the team should be protecting these drivers. Formula 1 is a real mental game. They all have immense skill but you don’t perform if your head is not in the right place,” said Button.

“I was surprised Zak came out and said he was not meeting expectations – we all know that. But when your team principal comes out and says that, it definitely hurts. From Daniel’s response, it hurt,” said the former world champion.

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The former McLaren driver hopes the team is doing everything to support Daniel right now amidst his struggles. He also gave his take on the current situation regarding his contract with The Woking-based team.

Jenson Button sympathizes with Daniel Ricciardo for his struggles with McLaren

The Brit mentioned it is essential for a driver to feel comfortable with the team so that he can deliver his best for them. He hopes that the team and the driver can resolve their issues and also believes that Brown and Ricciardo would have already spoken about it.

“It’s not an easy situation for a driver. And then everything we see – he had the incident, and the engineer said, ‘is the car okay?’ And Daniel replied, ‘I’m okay. We all pick up on that as soon as we hear Zak be kind of negative about Daniel. It just spirals out of control,” said the former world champion.

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It is sad to see Daniel going through this kind of slump in his Formula One career. But everyone who knows him and his talent believes that he will bounce back stronger. Hopefully, he can string together a couple of good weekends to help his confidence and prove the doubters wrong.