Andreas Seidl labels Daniel Ricciardo specualtion as a ‘broken record’ ahead of Canadian Grand Prix

McLaren team principal, Andreas Seidl, has called for an end to the continuous rumours about Daniel Ricciardo’s future after the Azerbaijan GP in Baku.

Ricciardo’s contract at McLaren runs until 2023, however, his dip in performance and struggles with adapting to the new era of Formula 1 cars has led to murmurs of an early departure.

Despite McLaren’s clear improvement of performance in Baku over the weekend, where Ricciardo finished eighth with Lando Norris finishing directly behind in ninth, the comments on Ricciardo’s future wouldn’t go away.

Ricciardo picked up four points in Baku to take him to 15 points for the season. But when compared to team-mate Norris, who is now on 50 points and seventh in the drivers’ standings, the gap in results is clear to see.

The chief executive of McLaren, Zak Brown, didn’t help the situation when he revealed that Ricciardo hadn’t “met expectations”, and that there are “mechanisms” in place which could lead to an early separation from the Australian driver.

However, speaking after the Baku Grand Prix team principal, Andreas Seidl, believes there are signs of progression from Ricciardo ahead of the Canadian GP.

He told the F1 Nation podcast: “I think there was some good work going on last week between him and the team just to find these last percentages, which are sometimes missing.

“He’s saying himself that he’s not feeling that comfortable, especially when he goes to qualifying, pushing the car to the limit so that’s good.

“Let’s try now to keep this momentum up and keep going in Montreal.”

Seidl also referred to the rumours surrounding the future of Ricciardo and McLaren as a “broken record”.

The team-principal believes that despite the claimed tension between the Australian driver and the team, there is a growing expectation of when Ricciardo will return with the results like in Baku.

Seidl said: “I think we all put a bit too much focus on this broken record at the moment.

“Daniel is very experienced, he’s working hard together with the team in order to deliver results similar to Lando.

“So actually within the team, it’s not such a big topic as it is made at the moment.”

The Formula 1 championship now heads to Montreal for the Canadian Grand Prix, where McLaren will look to carry the momentum they had in Azerbaijan into the race this weekend.

It is the first time that F1 has raced in Montreal since 2019 due to Covid-19 restrictions, the scheduled race was cancelled in 2021 and was replaced by an extra race in Austria of the Styrian GP instead.

McLaren now sit fourth in the constructors championship, 96 points behind the third place of Mercedes who also have their own technical problems to deal with at the moment.

However, McLaren will need both of their drivers to be competitive if they are to threat Mercedes and cannot rely on Norris to keep picking up the majority of their points.

Despite on the face of it, an 8th and 9th finish for McLaren can be seen as a positive right now, but there was pressure from Norris as to why he couldn’t overtake Ricciardo in the closing laps of the Azerbaijan GP.

Seidl squashed the idea of any tension between the two drivers while they are on track, as he revealed that team orders take priority.

He said: “The most important thing is we have prepared these scenarios that the drivers know exactly what the goals will be.

“If situations like this come up, I have a lot of trust in both guys and in the end, I’ve seen on track I can rely on them which is very important.”

McLaren could now look to close that gap this weekend to Mercedes with Hamilton’s physical challenges he is experiencing due to the heavy porpoising once again in Baku.