Daniel Ricciardo’s struggle to adapt to McLaren was one of the defining stories of the 2021 Formula 1 season.
Victory at the Italian Grand Prix was a part of Ricciardo’s improved form in the second half of last year but he still ended the season with several question marks over whether he’d ever return to the kind of form that made him one of F1’s highest-rated driver without a title when he was at Red Bull.
Can Ricciardo bounce back in 2022 amid a new regulations set that could produce a McLaren car concept that better suits his driving style? Or will he continue to fall short of his McLaren team-mate Lando Norris and struggle in 2022?
Ahead of McLaren’s launch later today, our writers give their verdict on whether Ricciardo will get his act together in 2022.
He’ll bounce back
Mark Hughes
I’ve got to admit, I’m concerned for Daniel.
Yes, he was much stronger in the second half of his McLaren season than in the first and he looked totally at home at Monza running at the front and taking that calm and perfectly composed victory.
But he still tended to lag a couple of tenths behind in qualifying, was still not perfectly finding the sweet spot of how the car had to be driven.
It was a specific mismatch between the traits of that particular car and how Ricciardo naturally wants to attack the corner entry and with such a radically different set of regulations, there’s every reason to believe that car trait will not carry through this year.
If that’s the case there’s no reason why Ricciardo can’t bounce back and compete just as hard or harder with Norris than he used to with Verstappen at Red Bull.
But if that doesn’t happen, he’s not wired up to be a number two and things could get very difficult. My hunch is that his quality will shine through and he will bounce back and be on a par with Norris. But there’s still a concern in the back of my mind about it.
Norris will take some beating
Edd Straw
Ricciardo didn’t forget to drive in 2022, as he proved with his victory at Monza, which is why the argument that he has in some way been ‘found out’ by failing to match Norris is a reductive one. We can expect better this year.
Unfortunately, how much better is difficult to quantify given the lack of available data.
The characteristics of the 2022 cars are very different and, although there’s a chance that some of the limitations in certain corner-entries that Ricciardo particularly struggled with could remain given they were a product of McLaren’s processes, this should represent a reset.
Having said that, given a front-end limitation in slower corners might be inherent to this regulation set, that might be a concern for Ricciardo – depending on exactly how that manifests itself dynamically.
But Ricciardo has excelled for the majority of his F1 career so it is reasonable to assume that last year was a blip for very specific reasons. As technical director James Key has explained, there was a clear clash between the weaknesses of the car and the areas where Ricciardo is brilliant at extracting pace – hence the struggles.
The question is where that leaves him relative to Norris. It would be a big surprise if the deficit is as big as it was on pure pace in 2021 so we can assume Ricciardo should be stronger this season. But if Norris is able to perform at the same level as in 2021, he will take some beating.
But this is the first time Norris has had to adapt from the 2019-2021 generation of McLarens to something different. There’s no reason to doubt his ability to make the switch as he’s an outstanding driver, but this is something new for him.
Ricciardo will be more effective this season than in 2021. But how much more effective and where that leaves him relative to Norris is subject to far too many variables to predict.
A recharged Ricciardo will fight back
Gary Anderson
The winter break came at just the right time for Ricciardo. Being from Australia, which has had draconian lockdown rules during the COVID-19 pandemic, no grand prix for two years and is a long way to travel to at the best of times, he hasn’t been able to visit his family as much as he would have liked.
Prior to returning home at the end of last season, the last time he was back in Australia was during F1’s hiatus in 2020, so it has been a long time. That can play on anyone’s mind and wear them down and Ricciardo has admitted that’s not helped his cause.
That coincided with probably his most difficult year as an F1 driver. But he has now had his year of working with and seeing how McLaren works as a team, it’s important to remember that he did win a race at Monza.
The new regulations and the learning process of last year will have helped to grow both his own and McLaren’s learning. Their combined experience should ensure Ricciardo is in a better place this year and allow him to get back to his best.
However, winning races on merit for anyone outside of Red Bull and Mercedes could still be very difficult. And on top of that, he’s also got a very fast team-mate in Lando Norris to be measured against.
The old Ricciardo will return in 2022
Megan Cantle
Whichever way you look at it, this is a big year for Ricciardo at McLaren. Can he put the difficulties he faced last season behind him and get his act together? For what it’s worth, yes, I think he can. He’s too good not to and he’s overcome big challenges before.
Lando Norris was operating at an absurdly high level in 2021 and, now armed with a new long-term contract, he won’t be heading into the new season short on confidence.
That in itself is a significant hurdle for Ricciardo, but it isn’t like he has never had to contend with a young superstar in waiting before in his F1 career. A challenge, yes, but one that a driver of Ricciardo’s obvious natural ability should relish.
It’s tricky to predict what a good season would look like for him because we just don’t know where McLaren will end up in the order of things by the time the cars hit the track for the first race.
A good guess would put them right at the top of the midfield and challenging for podiums and the odd win, but there’s every chance they could have aced the new regulations, or got them completely wrong. So, Norris really is the only benchmark he has, and it isn’t particularly groundbreaking to suggest that he’ll need to be matching him or beating him on a regular basis.
But even with all of this in mind, it’s important to remind ourselves that this is Daniel Ricciardo we’re talking about – a driver many people would’ve had in their top three on the grid just a few seasons ago. Struggling or not, that talent doesn’t just disappear, and that’s why I’m hedging my bets to say that we’ll see a return to the level we’re more accustomed to from Ricciardo in 2022.
Could go either way
Matt Beer
Ricciardo at his best was all about magic, improvisation and finding the confidence to unlock a whole other level of performance.
At his best he can outpace, outqualify, outrace and outbrake anyone on the grid and pull off moves (clean ones, too) or laptimes few can match.
But everything has to be in harmony for him to access that zone and it happened so rarely in 2021.
Given how vital confidence and self-belief are to Ricciardo finding his greatest performance level, I worry it’ll be hard for him to recapture it after last year’s blows.
Conversely, if he can work with this year’s McLaren more instinctively and bank a few early boosts, he might actually bounce back better than ever.
