A brutal verdict on Daniel Ricciardo's Formula 1 axing has been provided, as team talks emerge.
Ricciardo was released from his contract with VCARB back in September, and was replaced by Liam Lawson following a series of poor performances compared to team-mate Yuki Tsunoda.
It was the second time in the Australian's career that he had been axed, having been released early from his McLaren contract at the end of the 2022 season and replaced by Oscar Piastri.
Now, a frank assessment of his final few months in the sport has been offered by VCARB sporting director Alan Permane, who suggested talks to resolve the issues Ricciardo was enduring prior to his sack.
"Honestly no," Permane told Autosport when asked if they knew why Ricciardo struggled so much with the team's 2024 car.
"I don’t know and he doesn’t either. We sat down and talked, tried to figure it out. I was certainly worried that he was overthinking things - he was concerned about the tyres, that they couldn’t cope with the speed he would be asking of them.
"It felt like he was using his huge experience to second-guess things that potentially weren’t correct, because Yuki wasn’t and he was driving as quick as he could and it was working."