The French Grand Prix, last weekend, witnessed Daniel Ricciardo at his best after the scrappy start to his 2021 F1 campaign. And the entire F1 fandom was expecting the Australian to deliver similar results at the Red Bull Ring. However, that didn’t turn out to be the case, much to the fans’ disappointment.

Not only did Ricciardo fail to make it into Q3 on Saturday, but he also failed to secure points for McLaren in the race. He ended up where he started as he saw the checkered flag in a rather unimpressive P13 despite DNFs from two Top-10 runners, Pierre Gasly and George Russell.

However, McLaren’s Team Principal, Zak Brown, isn’t too concerned about Ricciardo’s form as he wrote a morale-boosting message for the struggling Australian on social media.

What was the McLaren boss’ message?

Brown took to Twitter to back Ricciardo after the latter endured yet another tough outing this season. He prompted Ricciardo to show his true pace over the next weekend in Austria.

“P5 and P13 gives us 10 points and continues our forward momentum. Well done to Lando on a good drive. Unfortunate for Daniel. But he has another week in Austria to show what he can do,” Brown wrote on his Twitter feed.

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Ricciardo was one of the few drivers to run long on the first stint. At one point, the McLaren driver only had Carlos Sainz for company on the track. And, as both the drivers pitted for a fresh set of tires, the Spaniard rejoined the track in P7.

Meanwhile, Ricciardo ended up in P15, and recovery from there looked quite bleak. Hence, after all the desperate efforts, the Honey Badger managed to gain just a couple of places, as he finished the race in P13, behind Sebastian Vettel.

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Immense pressure mounting on Daniel Ricciardo

It is a known fact that Ricciardo has always preferred being the alpha in a racing team. After a dominant phase with Red Bull, Ricciardo continued leading the way with Renault as well.

However, at McLaren, he found an in-form Lando Norris alongside him. The Briton has been unstoppable since the start of this season.

He failed to finish in the Top-5 just once, as he is still holding on to P4 on the Drivers’ Championship standings with 86 points in the bag ahead of Valtteri Bottas.

Meanwhile, there is Ricciardo, who is yet to score a Top-5 finish with McLaren. What’s more, Styrian GP marked the third time Ricciardo left a race weekend empty-handed.

Subsequently, the gap between himself and Norris on the championship table has blown up to 52 points. Hence, if the trend sustains, this could well take shape into the worst ever F1 season for Ricciardo.

So can the McLaren driver somehow put an end to the horror show his 2021 campaign is shaping up to become?

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