Zak Brown is happy to see Daniel Ricciardo "on top of his game", but the McLaren Racing boss is preparing for the future by putting a few irons in the fire.
Ricciardo trails teammate Lando Norris by 24 points in F1's Drivers' standings, having scored just a single top-ten finish in four races so far this season.
Last time out at Imola, a mistake and run-in with Ferrari's Carlos Sainz on the opening lap of the race put the Aussie out of contention.
However, Brawn believes that Ricciardo is performing at a better level than last year, especially on Sundays.
"Yeah, I think for sure," Brown told the F1 Nation podcast. "His race days have been very strong, much better in qualifying.
"Listening to him earlier this week with the team, I think he still doesn’t feel he’s 10 out of 10 on top of the car, but he has got a great relationship with Lando, he knows the team well.
"It was great he was able to go back to Australia for the first time in a couple of years and recharge the batteries and see the family, so we’re really happy to see Daniel on top of his game."
Ricciardo is contracted to McLaren until the end of 2023, but the Woking-based outfit is already planning for the future because, according to Brown, "you can never plan too early".
The papaya squad offered Arrow McLaren SP's Pato O'Ward an outing at the end of last year in Abu Dhabi while fellow IndyCar star Colton Herta has been enrolled into the team's 2022 test programme that will use last year's MCL35M under F1's Testing of Previous Cars provision.
McLaren also has a long-term deal with 14-year-old junior driver Ugo Ugochukwu who currently competes with Carlin in British F4.
Brown expects to sit down with Ricciardo later this year to discuss the future.
"We have another year together," said the American. "We do like to think long out, hence doing some testing with Pato.
"We’re going to do some testing with Colton, we’ve got Ugo in Formula 4, who put it on pole at his first race.
"So I don’t think you can ever plan too early, but there’s no rush."
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