"I saw a bit of a broken man"- McLaren right in cutting short Daniel Ricciardo's contract, says F1 pundit

Formula 1 pundit Martin Brundle has backed McLaren's decision to cut ties with Daniel Ricciardo at the end of the season.

The Australian had a contract with the team for the next season, but his abysmal performance this season forced the team to end the contract prematurely. On Sky Sports, Brundle spoke about the McLaren-Daniel Ricciardo relationship breaking down and said that the Australian seemed like a broken man.

Brundle said that Ricciardo's consistent lack of pace made the decision to part ways inevitable for McLaren.

“I’m not enjoying watching Daniel. It’s painful isn’t it. I consider him a friend, and I rate him massively as a person and a racing driver. If I was McLaren, I would have been doing the same thing because he’s struggling to get pace, and you can’t take that for another 18 months. I would have done exactly the same thing. How they’ve done it — they’ve made an agreement, this is a tough business."

In a more damning verdict about Ricciardo, Brundle said that his compatriot doesn't want to stay at McLaren and wants to join Alpine instead. He said:

“Daniel didn’t convince me that he wanted to stay on the grid, that he wanted to go to Alpine or anywhere else. I think he potentially does, but I saw a bit of a broken man, I didn’t see ‘I’m going to win a race this year, I am going to be on the grid next year. I’ll show them they’ve made the wrong decision here’.”

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Daniel Ricciardo reflects on disappointing weekend at Belgian GP

Daniel Ricciardo did not have a great weekend at the Belgian GP last weekend. The Australian ran almost the entirety of the race in the top ten only to fall out of contention with his last pitstop.

Eventually, the McLaren driver finished the race in a disappointing P15 position. Reflecting on the race, he said that the car's lack of pace was an issue.

"I think it was visible to see our struggles today. Not to be pessimistic, but I knew coming into the race that we would probably find it hard through the first and third sector with the rear wing that we were forced to use from yesterday. Obviously, I hoped that I'd have enough speed in the second sector to try and make something happen - but we just couldn't overtake with the speed we had."

He added:

"I know I wasn't the only one who struggled overtaking today; it looked like some cars were just so much quicker than others on the straight and that was it. In clear air, we certainly had a bit more speed but we just lost so much time being stuck behind cars and couldn't really make anything happen."

Ricciardo said that the team will hope for a better weekend in the next race in Zandvoort.

"I think there was a lot of opportunities with the mixed grid, but I appreciate Lando's race didn't seem that much better so maybe we just didn't have the package," said Ricciardo. "We've got a week to come back for Zandvoort. We'll see how we go there, and hopefully it's a good weekend."

The Australian's contract expires at the end of this season, but he's yet to find a seat for himself for the 2023 season.