“It sucks giving yourself a low grade”– Daniel Ricciardo dismayed after his first year with McLaren

Daniel Ricciardo is not convinced with his 2021 performances, where he gave his first year in F1 to McLaren; together, they aim for better 2022.

After a rocking 2020 year, McLaren was hoping to maintain on the same lines for the following year, with Daniel Ricciardo also joining them. However, things didn’t work accordingly.

McLaren lost to Ferrari in the constructors’ championship, while the Maranello based team was in their revival year. So, it’s not a respectful defeat for the Woking-based team.

Much of the blame can go to Ricciardo’s inconsistent performances across the year, which gave enough mileage to Ferrari against McLaren. And, realizing this fact, Ricciardo talks about his subpar performative year.

“I’ll give you a score, but I’ll say it sucks giving yourself a low grade because I’ve actually put a lot of effort in,” said Ricciardo to formula1news.co.uk.

“So if I say, like, three, it comes across like I haven’t tried. But it hasn’t been without trying – the first part of the season is probably a four, the second part a seven,” Ricciardo mused. “What’s been good this year is I never really knew what, let’s say, my strengths were.

“Okay, yes, I’m fast, but why am I fast? Where am I fast? In a way, this year, the weaknesses also showed me my strengths. That was quite interesting.

“You wouldn’t think in like, let’s call it bad times or a bad year, you would discover something good about yourself,” the 32-year-old admitted.

Also read: Daniel Ricciardo gets to end his exile; returns to his country Australia for first time since 2020

Daniel Ricciardo is seeking a comeback

Ricciardo will have to eye a comeback and lay in performances that McLaren needs and signed him for from hereon. The 32-year-old has shown that he can achieve colossal feats with the team.

His win in Monza is the biggest testimony of that statement. It remains to be seen what will happen as the competition in 2022 will escalate with the new regulations.

Also read: Daniel Ricciardo praises Oscar Piastri on his “wild” victory in the F2 championship

About the author

Tanish Chachra

Tanish Chachra is the Motorsport editor at The SportsRush. He saw his first race when F1 visited India in 2011, and since then, his romance with the sport has been seasonal until he took up this role in 2020. Reigniting F1's coverage on this site, Tanish has fallen in love with the sport all over again. He loves Kimi Raikkonen and sees a future world champion in Oscar Piastri. Away from us, he loves to snuggle inside his books.

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