"You give me a car to win and I’ll f***ing win"- Daniel Ricciardo discloses areas where he's 'humbling' in F1 currently

Daniel Ricciardo is having a disastrous season at McLaren. He recently sat down for an interview with TheRace and spoke about his time at McLaren. Ricciardo disclosed that he was optimistic but that his time with McLaren laid bare all his weaknesses. He said,

"I’m certainly aware that I’m not perfect, I have weaknesses. And unfortunately, this car’s exposed that ultimately. So, there is that where it’s humbling. I can still work on things and better myself. But then the confident part of me is like… but you give me a car to win and I’ll f***ing win!"

The Australian driver won the 2021 F1 Italian GP with McLaren, the only notable achievement in the two-year stint. Ricciardo said that he drew a lot of confidence from that win, proving to himself that he can win in any car. His attitude of 'I am the best' is a required trait of a world championship driver, but the years have taken a toll on the 33-year-old. He said,

"Don’t get me wrong, you still need that, or at least a big element of that, because otherwise, you don’t belong here, simply. But for sure, with age and maturity you start to just be more honest with yourself. If I was perfect, then I would have found a way to deal with this."

Daniel Ricciardo had a phenomenal 2014 season, but the Australian has not had a good season since leaving Red Bull in 2019 for Renault. With him publicly announcing a hiatus from the sport for next year, the Australian driver is not naive enough to think a seat for 2024 is guaranteed. Daniel Ricciardo wants a car in which he can showcase his potential and bid a successful career goodbye.

What the Australian driver wants is to stay away from a team like McLaren, which is at a very developmental stage. He revealed,

"It’s not that I don’t want to obviously work on my weaknesses! But I can’t be messing around with that too much. It’s ‘find a car that I can exploit my talent with, and I’ll find a way'."

Daniel Ricciardo explained what went wrong at McLaren

Daniel Ricciardo went on to explain why the move to McLaren, a match made in heaven by F1 pundits when it was announced, did not work out. He said,

"Never-ending steps. We would learn something on a weekend and we’ll take a step forward. But then there was another step that we had to make, or there was a new discovery."

Daniel Ricciardo continued, emphasizing how every weekend turned out, saying,

"So it’s like we would progress from the previous weekend, but ‘oh, now there’s another hurdle’. So next weekend, we’ll get over that hurdle. And pretty much every weekend, it was like an unforeseen hurdle."

Ricciardo revealed that the 2021 season was plagued by a braking issue in his car that he never figured out. The 2022 car was much harder for him to understand.

Fans of the Australian driver would like to see the old Ricciardo return in 2024, but a team giving a 33-year-old a chance when young drivers with more potential are available is very difficult.