McLaren Racing boss Zak Brown says the barrage of criticism he received last year after announcing Daniel Ricciardo’s dismissal from the team was “very difficult” to endure.
In the spring of 2020, even before the start of a belated F1 season, delayed for several months due to the global Covid pandemic, the sport’s driver market went into overdrive.
Ferrari announced a parting of the ways with Sebastian Vettel for 2021, and the hiring of Carlos Sainz from McLaren, while the Woking-based outfit signed up Ricciardo from Renault.
The high-profile game of musical chairs left both Sainz and Ricciardo fans bursting with impatience as they considered the moves as a step-up for both drivers.
But two years later, even the Aussie’s most ardent devotees were left scratching their heads, wondering where Ricciardo’s elusive brilliance had gone.
That summer, after an enduring period of underperformance, inexplicable for both team and driver, McLaren opted to put its driver out of his misery at the end of the season, a year before the end of his contract, and take a chance on young rookie and Alpine protégé Oscar Piastri.
While appearing inevitable, the decision left a bitter taste among Ricciardo’s fans and many McLaren supporters who ardently yearned for a resurgence from their beloved driver.
Amid the agitation, Brown remembers how he found himself on the receiving end of impassioned criticism and discontent from an uninformed public opinion.
“Breaking up with Daniel was very difficult. You know, love Daniel. Great guy,” Brown told the Track Limits podcast.
“It just didn’t work out, but that wasn’t the master plan in the end, so that was a very difficult situation.
“Especially, something like that is very public and then everyone has their opinions, and 99% of them don’t actually know what’s going on behind the scenes.
“So to get accused of certain behaviour… where they’re just not informed, and that’s the nature of the beast when you’re in the spotlight. Everyone has an opinion, but they don’t have the facts, so that was very difficult.”
Over twelve months on from McLaren and Ricciardo’s last race together, there are no bitter feelings lingering in either camp. And Brown confesses that he’ll always have a soft spot for F1’s resident Honey Badger.
“Great to see Daniel doing so well at Alpha Tauri because he’s a great guy and won me my first race,” he said. “Always had a soft spot for him, yeah.“
Where Ricciardo had failed during his two-year stint with McLaren, his successor excelled. It took less than half a season for Piastri to snap at the heels of Lando Norris, or to put the latter “on his toes” as Brown described.
“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,” commented the McLaren boss.
“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.”
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