(Motorsport) It’s no secret that McLaren and Daniel Ricciardo are having an underwhelming season. The team are currently fourth in the Constructors Standings with just 50 points while Ricciardo is 12th in the Drivers Standings, four places behind teammate Lando Norris despite racing in the same car. The Australian joined McLaren in 2021 from Renault and expectations were high with the team expecting him to build on his performance with Red Bull, where he recorded seven race wins. However, he simply hasn’t managed to settle in the team and has been consistently outperformed by the younger Lando Norris so far.

Speaking on the matter, McLaren CEO Zak Brown said “Lando definitely has an edge. We would obviously like to see Daniel much closer to Lando and have a good inter-team battle. Daniel is just not comfortable yet with the car, we're trying everything we can. Again it was a disappointing weekend. Short of [Ricciardo's win at] Monza and a few races, it's generally not kind of met his or our expectations, as far as what we were expecting. 

“I think all you can do is keep working hard as a team, keep communications going, keep pushing and hope that whatever is not kind of clicking at the moment clicks shortly. I think it also points to how good Lando is. When you look at the gap between Charles [Leclerc] and Carlos [Sainz], the gap between Max [Verstappen] and Sergio [Perez], there are gaps between team-mates. And I think Lando is one of the best drivers in the world at the moment and it also is kind of a compliment to how good Lando is when you see the gap that exists."

Meanwhile, Mercedes have played down their expectations from the Monaco Grand Prix, despite seeing significant improvement in the W13 during the Spanish Grand Prix. The Silver Arrows finished third (George Russell) and fifth (Lewis Hamilton) respectively but face a greater challenge in Monaco, a track they have traditionally struggled in. Mercedes Team Principal Toto Wolff said “We've seen another big step, probably we've halved the advantage to the front-runners. But still there's lots of way to go in order to be in the fight. Monaco in the past wasn't our most happy place, maybe because the car was the size of an elephant! I will be curious to see where we are this weekend. My expectations are lower than any other circuit… it's going to be a learning point at least, to bring us back into the game." 

Ferrari have downplayed Mercedes’ claims that they are back in the title race with Mattia Binotto, Principal of the Scuderia Ferrari saying “Congrats to them, they recovered and they improved the speed of their car. On Saturday [in Spain] they were six, seven tenths on a quali lap which is still a short circuit. On Sunday they finished 30 seconds to a Red Bull, and it would have been maybe 40 seconds to Charles [Leclerc, who retired]. That's six, seven tenths a lap and that's still significant, it's like Ferrari last year." 

Also read: Monaco GP Preview: Title race intensifies between Red Bull and Ferrari