The Australian driver experienced a nightmare final year with the Woking-based team, but according to the papaya CEO, the biggest issues were actually elsewhere.
From the bottom to the top
The McLaren that dominated the 2025 Constructors’ Championship, repeating its 2024 triumph, looks like a distant relative of the team that started this regulatory cycle back in 2022 with Lando Norris and Daniel Ricciardo behind the wheel. Daniel Ricciardo, who had won at Monza the previous year and delivered McLaren’s first Formula 1 victory since 2012, endured a nightmare second season. He was consistently outperformed race after race by Norris, finishing the championship with a staggering 85-point deficit in an embarrassing 122–37 final tally.
At the end of the season, the two sides reached a highly discussed separation: Daniel Ricciardo — who still had one year left on his contract — received a massive payout of over 25 million euros to step aside, and his seat was handed to fellow Australian Oscar Piastri. McLaren CEO Zak Brown, who was already in charge at the time, revealed several behind-the-scenes details in Formula 1’s official podcast, Beyond the Grid. According to Brown, who maintains an excellent relationship with Ricciardo, the Honey Badger’s slump in results actually hid deeper issues affecting the team under Andreas Seidl’s leadership.
Daniel Ricciardo out, but not the only issue
“In 2022 all the newspaper headlines were focused on Daniel’s difficulties, and he’s a fantastic guy,” Zak Brown explained, “and unfortunately things just didn’t work out between us. But I saw what was beyond that. I didn’t like the direction the team was heading in and the leadership regarding things that we are doing today: achieving incremental gains, never being satisfied, always chasing perfection even if you can never reach it — that kind of team mentality.”
The moment that opened Zak Brown’s eyes came at the 2022 French Grand Prix, where McLaren introduced several upgrades to the car that did not deliver the expected impact. “All the headlines were about Daniel and the drivers’ issues, but we brought a major upgrade to the 2022 French Grand Prix and it didn’t work. The response from the team was not what I expected. Never mind that technically I can’t fix that problem, but I can look at the people who I expect to solve that problem and say: ‘Guys, did you not see what happened on Sunday? On Monday it was all business as usual.’ That was my moment of enlightenment. From there we made certain changes at the end of the year.”
The reference appears to be directed at then–team principal Andreas Seidl, who left the team at the end of that season, making way for current McLaren team boss Andrea Stella. Under Stella’s leadership, McLaren has transformed into one of the benchmark forces in the entire Formula 1 paddock.
Leave a Reply