It has indeed been a season of continuous ups and downs for Daniel Ricciardo. The Australian started his McLaren stint off in a rather uneventful manner and managed to bounce back following the summer break with the Italian GP race victory, but is back to being the second quickest driver of McLaren.

And this transition was quite evident in Qatar where he qualified in a distant P14 while his teammate, Lando Norris qualified P4 after the wave of grid penalties handed to Valtteri Bottas and Max Verstappen.

Hence, the Honey Badger decided to troll himself prior to lights out at the Losail International Circuit.

A video surfaced on social media where Norris and his boss, Zak Brown were busy conversing about the revised starting grid while Ricciardo and other McLaren crew were eavesdropping on the chat.

How did the conversation pan out?

It sounded as if Norris was focusing on the starting positions of Verstappen and Bottas. Although he initially looked dejected when he heard the Dutchman would be starting behind Bottas, he heaved a sigh of relief when the realization struck that Verstappen wouldn’t be starting on the dirty side of the track.

“So, Bottas doesn’t go behind him?” Norris asked Brown. “No, Bottas is sixth, Max is seventh,” replied Brown.

Hence, hearing that, Norris wasn’t pleased. “That’s really bad. Yeah, but the left will be better than starting on the right,” Norris concluded. Ricciardo had enough of it and jumped right into the conversation with an absolutely savage response.

What did Daniel Ricciardo say?

Ricciardo took a hilarious dig at himself which left the entire crew, including Brown and Norris, bursting into laughter.

“So, where do I start? Oh, fu*king 14th,” the Australian said, as he walked back into the McLaren hospitality.

Although Ricciardo started so off from his teammate, the result only separated the duo by 3 positions. Norris, having been forced to pit late in the race due to a puncture, came home in P9 while Ricciardo only managed to gain a couple of positions to finish P12.

Overall, McLaren’s battle for P3 with Ferrari is pretty much over. However, Norris is still defending hard for P5 in the driver’s standings; Both the Ferrari drivers are seeking to pull Norris down, as the gap between Norris and Leclerc is now down to 1 point.

So, can Norris offer McLaren something to cheer for by the end of the season? Or will the persistent downfall since Sochi hand them a frowning end to 2021? Only time will tell.

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