F1 fans have sided with Jacques Villeneuve after the former world champion blasted Daniel Ricciardo's career in the sport.
Ricciardo was given a second chance in F1 with RB after being axed from McLaren at the end of the 2022 season.
The Australian driver impressed at Toro Rosso when he first broke into F1 over a decade ago before earning himself a spot at Red Bull.
However, Max Verstappen's dominance in the team saw Ricciardo seek an opportunity elsewhere with Renault, which failed to pan out how he thought.
A two-year stint with McLaren saw Ricciardo struggle to keep up with Lando Norris before taking a seat alongside Yuki Tsunoda at RB.
But Ricciardo hasn't managed to finish ahead of Tsunoda since the opening race of the season in Bahrain and has picked up just five points - all from the sprint in Miami.
His contract runs until the end of the season with Ricciardo desperate to prove himself capable of challenging in the sport once again.
However, Villeneuve clearly doesn't think Ricciardo is deserving of a spot in F1 anymore.
“Why’s he still in F1? Why?” Villeneuve said.
“We are hearing the same thing now for the last four or five years. ‘We have to make the car better for him’. Sorry, it’s been five years of that. No, you are in F1.
“Maybe you make that effort for Lewis Hamilton whose won multiple championships. You don’t make that effort for a driver who can’t cut it.
“If you can’t cut it, go home, there’s someone else to take your place. That’s how it’s always been in racing, it’s the pinnacle of the sport.
"There’s no reason to keep going and to keep finding excuses, and you all talk about that first season or first two seasons, he was beating a Vettel that was burnt out, that was trying to invent things with the car to go win and just making a mess of his weekends.
“Then he was beating for half a season Verstappen when Verstappen was 18 years old, just starting, that was it, he stopped beating anyone after that.”
The savage rant from Villeneuve caused a stir on social media, although most were in agreement that the 1997 world champion was speaking the truth.
One person replied: "Dropping truth bombs."
Another said: "Nothing said which wasn't true."
A third posted: "Absolutely spot on. Danny Ric has been past it for ages."
One other person noted: "Harsh but fair."
Another wrote: "He's only saying what people are thinking. It is absolutely Ricciardo's image & brand keeping him in."
