Ahead of the upcoming Monaco Grand Prix, there are a few drivers who will know that they need to improve their performances this season.
The 2025 driver’s market is putting more pressure on a number of those drivers with contracts needing to be renewed and a few exciting race seats available.
There are still several teams who have yet to confirm either of their drivers for next season.
That includes Haas – who have lost Nico Hulkenberg – as well as Alpine and Visa Cash App RB.
RB team principal Laurent Mekies has been speaking to Eurosport and admitted that amid his contract expiring at the end of the year, Daniel Ricciardo has had a ‘difficult’ start to the season.
The Australian has previously admitted that his dream is to finish his F1 career with Red Bull and Sergio Perez’s future is far from certain are a poor weekend at Imola.
However, Ricciardo has also struggled at the start of the year and is being outshone by his less experienced teammate Yuki Tsunoda.
READ MORE: Visa Cash App RB driver Daniel Ricciardo’s life outside F1 from net worth to girlfriend
RB team principal Laurent Mekies admits Daniel Ricciardo is having a ‘difficult’ season
It’s been an underwhelming start to the campaign for Daniel Ricciardo who had so much promise during pre-season.
Ted Kravitz was tipping the 34-year-old to return to the podium with RB and Red Bull’s partnership tightening over the winter.
While RB are the strongest team in the bottom half of the grid and slowly closing the gap to Aston Martin, the praise this season has all been directed towards Yuki Tsunoda.
The Japanese driver has been fantastic and was once again the best of the race at Imola, benefitting from a rare off weekend for Fernando Alonso.
Mekies admitted that Ricciardo has had a ‘difficult’ beginning to the campaign but has seen signs of improvement recently.
The Australian is one of the drivers seeking to clarify his future beyond 2024 and it’ll be interesting to see whether another year at RB appeals to him.
Two teams have already ruled themselves out of moving for the eight-time race winner narrowing his already limited options.
Daniel Ricciardo the second-best driver at RB this season
Talking about Ricciardo’s start to 2024, Mekies said: “It’s undeniable that we had a difficult start to the season with Daniel.
“He couldn’t find the car’s behaviour allowing him to express himself at best. We had a first phase of analysis to understand.
“We are in a phase which allows him to express himself. This is not unique to Daniel or to us: all drivers have preferences in terms of driving style.
“[We have] a lot of work to do to give Daniel the necessary confidence [and] we saw significant progress (after two difficult races) in Australia, Japan, China, Miami, Imola.
“We compare him to Yuki [Tsunoda], who is having an extraordinary season, exploding. He is taking another step forward which is surprising everyone.”
Ricciardo may have found life difficult during the first few race weekends, but Mekies doesn’t appear to have any plans to immediately replace him.
Liam Lawson is waiting in the wings at Red Bull, but Helmut Marko has already batted away suggestions that there could be an Antipodean driver swap mid-season.
However, RB won’t be able to ignore that speculation heading into 2025 with Lawson understood to have a clause in his contract that promises him a race seat.
At this stage of the season, they’re much more likely to stick with the in-form Tsunoda than his teammate.
The post ‘It’s undeniable’: F1 team boss admits 8-time race winner has had ‘difficult’ start to 2024 season appeared first on F1 Oversteer.