"There are so many caveats. It is littered with caveats" - Daniel Ricciardo gets support from Natalie Pinkham over his poor start to the season

Daniel Ricciardo has received support from F1 pundit Natalie Pinkham over the former's poor start to the season. The Australian came back to the sport in 2023 with the intent to impress Red Bull and subsequently Sergio Perez. While the Austrian team did not take the plunge last season, 2024 was going to be the year where the Australian proved himself.

That has unfortunately not happened in the first three races. Ricciardo was outperformed by teammate Yuki Tsunoda at the start of the season. The Japanese driver has been the better Red Bull driver in general and this has led to calls from multiple pundits about the future of the Australian.

On the F1 Nation podcast, L'Equipe's Fred Ferret felt that Daniel was not performing at the desired level and had struggled since his move from Red Bull.

Natalie Pinkham however, came out in support of the Australian and said that there were a lot of things at play here. She said:

"Looking at race results, you are right. But there are so many caveats. It is littered with caveats. That McLaren was so difficult to drive. Lando has only ever known that McLaren, he grew with the team. [Ricciardo] did perform at Renault. He outperformed the car arguably."

She added:

"And he broke his hand at Zandvoort [for AlphaTauri last year]! That was a horrible setback for him. And actually it looked as if he was going to do something in that car, towards the latter half of the season. I'm a fan, a supporter, of his. But I recognise that you've got to put the work in, and get the results. It's a results driven game. But I believe he can do that."

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Daniel Ricciardo is getting old

L'Equipe's Fred Ferret was quite vocal in his criticism of Daniel Ricciardo. Going as far back as 2019, when the Australian switched from Red Bull to Renault, Ferret said Daniel had struggled in general early on in the French team before being completely out of sorts at McLaren and now Red Bull.

Highlighting how Ricciardo is one of the elder statesmen in F1, Ferret said:

"When Daniel moved from Red Bull to Renault it took him some time to deliver. When he moved from Renault to McLaren, he never delivered, even if he won [one grand prix]. When he moved from McLaren to [RB] he isn't as impressive as he was. He's getting old and he's not able to come back in every car that he has to drive."

Pressure has already begun to mount on Daniel Ricciardo after the first three races and the Australian will be hoping to bounce back soon from this.