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Damon Hill, the 1996 Formula 1 World Champion, has compared Daniel Ricciardo’s underperformance to his own 1999 season.

Ricciardo’s F1 career is being brought to a close after being paired with Lando Norris, according to Hill.

Ricciardo’s three-year deal with McLaren has been brought under heavy scrutiny in recent weeks due to his continued failure to match Norris over a grand prix weekend. After the Monaco weekend, McLaren have scored 59 points in 2022 – 48 of those courtesy of Norris.

McLaren CEO Zak Brown did little to assuage the speculation about Ricciardo’s future as he revealed there are “mechanisms” in Ricciardo’s contract to remove him if McLaren desire – these would presumably be performance-related clauses.

Speaking on the F1 Nation podcast, Hill was asked for his thoughts on Brown’s comments.

“Zak didn’t exactly come out with this comment just because he wanted to make a statement about how he felt about Daniel Ricciardo,” he said.

“There has been a lot of conjecture and us, the media, have been asking ‘what are you going to do about Daniel Ricciardo?’

“Everyone can see he’s reached a kind of creative block somewhere with his performances. He can’t seem to unlock what he needs. I know he won Monza (in 2021) and he showed that when he gets in the lead, something else fires up. But something’s missing.”

Hill said it has proven unfortunate for Ricciardo that he was paired with Norris as the young British driver hit his stride in F1, given the Australian driver had made