Zak Brown Opens Up On McLaren’s ‘Very Difficult Break-Up’ With Daniel Ricciardo

Posted on December 11, 2023 | by Charley Williams So much has happened since it was announced that Daniel Ricciardo wouldn’t see out his contract with McLaren and that Oscar Piastri would replace him for the 2023 season. In only 16 months, Daniel has gone from a full-time drive with McLaren to having no drive for 2023, to being offered a seat with Haas, turning them down, going back ‘home’ as a third driver for Red Bull and then getting a full-time drive with AlphaTauri at the expense of Nyck de Vries. Phew. Apart from his victory at the 2021 Italian GP, Daniel struggled with the McLaren car and admitted it just wasn’t suiting his driving style. It was a tough two years, and ultimately it wasn’t doing him or the team any good, so they decided to terminate his contract early. Earlier this year, Daniel admitted that although he found it quite harsh at the time, by the time the season had ended he realised it was a blessing in disguise. The team, particularly those in charge, received a lot of backlash from fans regarding the decision, and now Zak Brown has opened up to Track Limits on that time: “Breaking up with Daniel was very difficult. “You know, love Daniel. Great guy. “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.”  Do you think the situation could have been handled differently?