McLaren apologises to Daniel Ricciardo for not giving him "the material that he deserves" for Saudi Arabian GP

Daniel Ricciardo was having a solid race in the Saudi Arabian GP and looked destined to score his points for the 2022 F1 season. However, later in the race, disaster struck for Ricciardo as his car completely shut down and brought his race to a halt.

After the race, Ricciardo's team boss Andreas Seidl took the opportunity to apologize to the driver for not providing him with the necessary equipment for the race.

“Obviously, we can only apologise to Daniel that we didn’t give him the material that he deserves to have because from his side I think it was a strong weekend. With the strategy we chose with him, to offset him a bit from everyone else after he was stuck in the early stint, I think it would have paid off and I think he could have finished right where Lando finished.”

When asked what was the reason behind the stoppage for Daniel Ricciardo's car, Seidl explained that the team needed to analyze what had happened and why the car all of a sudden lost drive.

"We still need to analyse why exactly we lost drive. It is something we experienced for the first time"

For McLaren, Norris was able to finish the race seventh and pick up the first points of the season for McLaren. Seidl, reflecting on the weekend, had nothing but praise for the drivers for doing the job that they did but was also conscious of the fact that the team benefitted from other cars dropping out of the race.

“For sure, we had two great drives with Lando and Daniel maximising everything we could give them at the moment with this car [but], of course, we do not forget that we also benefitted from cars dropping out. Simply good motivation for all of us to keep working hard in order to bring more performance to the car in the next weeks and races as quickly as we can.”

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Daniel Ricciardo heads to his home race with no points in the bag

Daniel Ricciardo will be heading into the Australian GP with no points in the bag. McLaren were rather uncompetitive in Bahrain, which saw both Red Bull drivers drop out of points contention. In Saudi Arabia, Ricciardo seemed destined to score points but a late reliability issue forced him out of the race.