Daniel Ricciardo backs McLaren to win F1 race this year despite wretched start to 2022

Daniel Ricciardo is remaining bullish about his team's chances of winning a race before the end of the year despite McLaren's wretched start to the 2022 season. Just a few weeks before lights out in Bahrain there was a real sense of optimism for the team but, just two difficult races in, much of the positivity has faded away.

Neither Ricciardo nor Lando Norris managed to finish in the top 10 in the season opener, and the same was true for the Aussie last time out in Saudi Arabia. At least Norris took home six points for finishing seventh in Jeddah, but team principal Andreas Seidl and chief Zak Brown will want much more than that to fulfil their ambitions.

After all, this is a McLaren team which has just come off back-to-back seasons in which it was battling to finish as 'best of the rest' behind Mercedes and Red Bull in the drivers' standings. That's what happened in 2020, while Ferrari managed to win the race to third place last year.

It is early days in 2022 of course, but McLaren find themselves in eighth place after the first two races. Only the pointless pair of Aston Martin and Williams are below them in the standings, while the likes of Alpine, Haas and Alfa Romeo are all outperforming them so far.

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A lack of downforce and grip has been the main issue for both drivers, and in Bahrain in particular it rendered both cars entirely uncompetitive. Ricciardo's source of optimism going forward is that progress was made for the race in Jeddah a week later, signalling that the team is no longer in "crisis mode".

"If it comes, it will come a bit later than certainly desired," he told The Race. "But without getting ahead [of ourselves], if we were to