Zak Brown takes thinly-veiled swipe at Daniel Ricciardo with telling F1 claim

Daniel Ricciardo. Credit: Getty Images — Photo: © LAT Images

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Brown takes thinly-veiled swipe at Ricciardo with telling F1 claim

The F1 chief made a telling point when it came to driver competition at McLaren

Matthew Hobkinson Lead Editor

F1 Editor & Journalist

Monday 18 December 2023 21:57

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McLaren CEO Zak Brown has claimed that Lando Norris has not been regularly challenged by his Formula 1 team-mates in recent seasons, including the time he spent driving alongside Daniel Ricciardo.

Ricciardo's time at McLaren came to an early end in 2022 when both parties agreed to prematurely terminate their contract one year sooner than expected.

The Australian F1 star then found himself without a grid spot at the start of 2023, with fellow Antipodean, Oscar Piastri, replacing Ricciardo at McLaren.

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The rookie has excelled in his first year with the team, often looking like an experienced driver behind the wheel of his MCL60.

Daniel Ricciardo's time at McLaren came to an earlier than anticipated end

The Australian found a way back into the sport with AlphaTauri, driving alongside Yuki Tsunoda (R)

Brown will no doubt be delighted with such a young and talented driver line-up, with both Norris (24) and Piastri (22) at least a decade or more younger than Ricciardo (34).

And the McLaren CEO has perhaps made somewhat of a telling comment when it comes to the Honey Badger's time with the team, insisting that he never really pushed Norris on a regular basis.

Brown: Ricciardo never provided regular competition

“I don’t think necessarily that [Piastri] brings something different but Lando hadn’t been challenged by his team-mate the last couple of years on a regular basis,” he told the Track Limits podcast.

“On a side note, great to see Daniel doing so well at AlphaTauri because he’s a great, great guy, won me my first race.

Lando Norris (L) and Oscar Piastri (R) will continue to race with McLaren in 2024

“But I think Oscar is keeping Lando on his toes. I think the benefit is they like a very similar race car, so we’re getting consistent feedback from the two.

“Last thing you want to do is have two drivers that one says they have understeer, the other says they have oversteer and then kind of what do you do?

“So I think we’re benefiting from having two very fast drivers that are very technical and we do have an experienced and a rookie, it’s just that our experienced guy happens to be pretty young.”