The world of all Daniel Ricciardo fans came to a standstill when McLaren announced the Australian would not be a part of their 2023 lineup. The Woking-based outfit terminated his contract a year early, leaving the beloved Ricciardo high and dry. However, after much drama and many life-altering decisions, Ricciardo found himself a seat back in the circus. However, the McLaren CEO is still being confronted about the brutal snubbing of the Honey Badger.

Initially, there was a big uproar against McLaren for Daniel Ricciardo‘s alleged ill-treatment. The fans swarmed social media to blast McLaren. However, the CEO Zak Brown has come out on multiple occasions to defend the treatment of Ricciardo. A year on, the American boss is still doing that.

Zak Brown confronts the accusation of Daniel Ricciardo’s ill-treatment in the McLaren saga

An ousting from a team for any driver is painful, especially for a driver of Ricciardo’s stature. The multiple-race winner needed some time off to recover from the horrors during his McLaren tenure. This road to mental recovery was very public, as most things are in the life of F1 drivers.

Read More: “Brought Me Back to Normal Daniel:” Ricciardo Outlines the Cathartic Process That Made Him Shrug Off Horrors of McLaren Past

Despite that, Zak Brown has always maintained his stance on his and the team’s treatment of Ricciardo. He reiterated that during his conversation on the latest YouTube video of the Track Limits channel.

Talking about some of the tough moments as boss, Brown revealed, “You know breaking up with Daniel was very difficult. You know, love Daniel and great guy and it just didn’t work out but that wasn’t the masterplan. So that was a very difficult situation especially. Something like that’s very public and everyone has their opinions and 99% of them don’t actually know what’s going on behind the scenes. So to kind of get accused of certain behavior where they’re just not informed and that’s the nature of the beast when you’re in a spotlight and everyone’s got an opinion but they don’t have the facts. So that was very difficult.”

The American still maintains the stance the general perception was off on Ricciardo’s treatment and there are no ill feelings. In fact, he still has a soft spot for the Honey Badger. Despite that, the status quo remains. Ricciardo needed help to recover from the McLaren horrors.

Daniel Ricciardo gets candid on his road to recovery from the McLaren horrors

The Australian was down and out by the second year of his time at McLaren. Despite him winning a race for the team, his overall tenure with the team is still looked upon as disappointing. This disappointment and consistently poor results affected the 34-year-old on a deeper level.

His former race engineer and current Group Leader of Simulation Engineering, Simon Rennie revealed that in an interview on the “Talking Bull” segment of Red Bull’s official YouTube page.

Interrupting Ricciardo during one answer, he said, “I don’t think it was as easy as you thought it was gonna be. When he first came back, I was quite surprised, knowing Daniel, how he was. I didn’t say this to you at the time. You were definitely not as confident as I know you are and you were just like a little bit hollow in a way and felt like you were doubting yourself a little bit and you were concerned about whether you could do it again. Obviously, you’ve done good success with us and the last couple of years haven’t been quite successful.”

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This revelation tells us the impact Ricciardo’s time at McLaren had on him. However, it’s all in the past now and we can enjoy the classic late-braking Honey Badger for at least one more year.