Andreas Seidl is not blaming Daniel Ricciardo for losing out fourth to Alpine in the F1 standings in 2022 after major points were scored by Lando Norris.
Having had a sound 2021, McLaren had a setback of sorts in 2022 with brake issues hurting them from the onset of the year. It took them a while to settle in but they still had the Ricciardo problem in a way with the Australian still having issues to adapt.
Despite the new regulations, it just didn’t click for Ricciardo at McLaren and by mid-part, speculation of him losing his seat started to rumble in. Even though the announcement came late but the team already started talking with Oscar Piastri for a drive in July.
Eventually Ricciardo was bought out of his contract a year early with Piastri getting the nod for 2023. The Australian gathered 37 points to Norris’ 122 which kind of put McLaren on the backfoot against Alpine where both drivers were evenly matched.
Esteban Ocon scored 92 to Fernando Alonso’s 81 and were faster than McLaren more or less where reliability hurt them more than anything. But Seidl is not to put the blame on Ricciardo solely as he reckons it was collective situation rather than just one person.
“I’m moved away from blaming Daniel,” said Seidl to media including FormulaRapida.net. “In the end up there as well is my responsibility to get to work together with Daniel in the way we were all hoping for. That in the end is part of not scoring the points as a team that you wanted to score that you would have scored.
“It is something that we will try to address and improve for next year. In the end of you finish the season in P5, that’s the position you deserve to be in and it’s always a fair reflection of where you have been throughout the season and we simply need to acknowledge that Alpine did a better job than us and we simply need to congratulate them on the good job they together with Fernando and Esteban,” summed up Seidl.
While there was some off colour comments from Fernando Alonso when leaving Alpine, it wasn’t the case with Ricciardo against McLaren despite losing out on his contract. Seidl praised the Australian for the way he handled the situation, ending their term together in good spirits even though they didn’t get the results.
“For me it was also great to see how Daniel was dealing with the difficult situation that we made by deciding to split at the end of the season,” said Seidl. “I think he showed that he was a world class character. It was not easy for him in terms of the decision to take the team apart which we navigate and in the end it is a human sport and a team sport but the drivers play an important role as well.
“I had had a lot of dialogue with Daniel as well at any stage of the decision making. I’m very happy that in the end we managed to finish the season together in style and still be in a position to have a laugh together and share a beer and have dinner which was very important to me and that’s a positive outcome as well for me from this season,” summed up Seidl.
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