Ricciardo: Not backing down from any challenges

The McLaren driver has not been up to McLaren's expectations, something CEO Zak Brown said before, and the rumour mill has been in full swing regarding his future, with Colton Herta recently testing a Papaya Orange Formula 1 car in Portugal with some of the rumours claiming he would be Ricciardo's replacement.

Ricciardo expressed his commitment to see his contract with McLaren through in a social media post (his contract runs until the end of the 2023 season), while Brown said that he expects his struggling driver to be close to his teammate Lando Norris in terms of performance.

The Honey Badger scored some points during the Austrian Grand Prix two weeks ago, and facing the media at the French Grand Prix, he was naturally asked about his future as well as his latest social media post.

"There’s always going to be rumours and noise," Ricciardo was quoted saying by F1's official website. "Am I going to get out of [F1] or whatever? No!

"It’s not what I want, and there’s unfinished business. Not only in the sport but with the team, with McLaren, and I want to do it."

Ricciardo said his post was partially directed at his colleagues back at the McLaren factory in Woking, who might have been affected by the media reports about his future.

He revealed: "I also wanted to address – as you know, there's a lot of people in the factory, all these race teams, there's hundreds of people that work from the factory that don't come trackside and obviously don't get to see everything, don't get to see me on a race weekend as well, and [see] the work I'm putting in or whatever.

"So also for them, if they're just reading some headlines on, like, what's Daniel's future, is he going to move to another team again – but they're trying to develop the car for me, and it's like, 'What's Daniel going to do?'

"I just wanted to remove any doubt from them as well. I wanted to address them and be like, 'Guys, I'm in this with you.' I just wanted to draw a line under it," he added.

"I’m basically not backing down from any challenges," he defiantly said. "Obviously we’ve faced a few over the 18 months and all of that sort of stuff.

"But simply this, I would love to swear if I could – but this stuff means a lot to me," an emotional Ricciardo added.

With the media spotlight being on him, Ricciardo would have surely been affected by all the talks about him losing his McLaren drive, and even his F1 career.

Asked if all the press attention affected him, Ricciardo said: "Look, would it be easier not to always deal with it? Probably.

"But… being in this sport now a long time, I know how it works. So I don't get angry. Of course, I use some energy answering the questions, but I don't, let's say, use any unnecessary energy.

"Once this [media session] is done now, I go and move onto my engineering or I do whatever else I have to do," he went on. "So it is what it is. At the end of the day, if I go out and I win this weekend, then everyone's like, 'Ah, we told you!'

"So I know that crossing the line is going to dictate the biggest narrative and that's obviously what I'll just keep working at doing the best.

"Obviously [the victory in] Monza, that worked for a while – and then after a few months, it kind of went back to how it was. [So winning this weekend would] put a band-aid on everyone for a few months!" the winner of the 2021 Italian Grand Prix maintained.

Ricciardo will be contesting his 222nd grand prix this weekend at Le Castellet. He is 12th in the F1 Drivers' Championship on 17 points.