Ricciardo would be the only one able to decide to leave McLaren at the end of the season
Daniel Ricciardo would be the only one to be able to decide to leave McLaren at the end of the season. According to information from The Race, there is indeed a clause in his contract for a departure as early as the end of the year, but only the Australian could activate it.
In the works for a few weeks now, the rumor of Daniel Ricciardo’s departure at the end of the season is taking a new turn. The Race announces that the Australian had included a clause in his contract allowing him to leave the team before the end of his contract scheduled until 2023. However, this clause could only be activated by Ricciardo himself and not by McLaren.
A piece of news that would thus leave the former Red Bull as the sole master of his fate, as McLaren CEO Zak Brown had clearly expressed his disappointment with the level displayed by his driver since his arrival. On the sidelines of the Indianapolis 500, where he was present last weekend, Brown also spoke about Ricciardo’s contract.
“I don’t want to go into the details of the contract,” he explains. “But there are mechanisms in which we are committed to each other, and then there are mechanisms in which we are not.”
« I discussed it with Daniel, we are not getting the results we both hoped for, but we will continue to push. We will just play the game – I don’t mean ‘one race at a time’ because we won’t be doing one race at a time – but we will just see how things develop, what he wants to do, says the British person.
Despite his victory in Monza last year, Daniel Ricciardo is going through a very difficult period at McLaren. This season, he has only scored points once and is being overshadowed by his teammate Lando Norris (48 points to 11). If the Australian were to leave at the end of the season, some rumors suggest that Pierre Gasly is a very credible candidate to replace him.
