09/08/2021
NEWS STORY
McLaren team boss, Andreas Seidl insists that Daniel Ricciardo's lack of sustained form this season is not due to the chassis.
Many expected the ever-smiling Australian to walk into Woking, slide his feet under the table and gradually become the de facto Number One. However, it was not to be.
Teammate Lando Norris has had the upper hand from the outset, outpacing the Australian in almost every session, qualifying (on average) around 6th while Ricciardo just about scrapes into Q3.
Three podium finishes see Norris head into the summer break fourth in the overall standings, while Ricciardo, whose best finish was fifth at Silverstone, is eighth with less than half the points.
From the outset, Ricciardo has insisted that the root of his problems was a case of getting used to the car, and while some point to how a change of chassis turned Esteban Ocon's fortunes around, Andreas Seidl says this is not the case as far as the Australian is concerned.
"I think we've done one swap this year, or one change," the German revealed. "I don't want to say when it was because it will create headlines, but I think I know when we swapped.
"As part of our normal, let's say programme, how we use our parts, there is a scheduled rotation of monocoques," Seidl continued. "On Daniel's side, we already changed two times this year.
"But again, there's nothing on the monocoque side," he added, " we clearly see what the issues are that Daniel is also describing, that has nothing to do with parts and so on.
"It has to do with characteristics of our car, and in the end, it's a combination of Daniel still getting used to our car but at the same time, he also has a team-mate that is in an unbelievable form. That's where we see this gap from time to time."
"That sort of stuff, I obviously put my trust in the team to check everything over," said Ricciardo of the chassis changes. "When the season's not going great, I don't want to be like 'oh, change this, change that' and turn everything upside down.
"I think they're doing the full analysis and if they feel the need to change, say, chassis or something, I obviously trust that they'll do it. I don't want to just throw everything at it and come across as like I'm making excuses or anything like that."