Formula 1: Australian Daniel Ricciardo to leave McLaren at end of season

At the end of the season, Daniel Ricciardo will be leaving McLaren.

McLaren admitted that they had caused the split, but the team said they and the Australian had agreed.

Confirmation that McLaren have signed Australian Oscar Piastri is expected after the announcement.

McLaren will confirm their driver line-up in the future.

Lando is under contract until the end of the century.

The eight-time winner's contract was terminated by McLaren a year early due to his poor performance.

In terms of time taken to qualify, Ricciardo has been 0.256 seconds slower than Norris this season.

The difference between 12th and seventh place in the championship is five points.

At last year's Italian Grand Prix, he did win a race for McLaren, but on the whole he was behind.

After talking with Daniel, we decided it was the right thing for both sides to part ways for next year.

"If you look back at the last 18 months of our journey together, Daniel and McLaren, it's clear we haven't achieved the result we wanted."

"That's why we had a lot of discussions but in the end we had to acknowledge we did not make it work together despite the commitment that was there from Daniel's side and all the effort the team has put in."

We want to finish the relationship on a high even though it isn't what we wanted.

In a McLaren statement, he said that he would announce his plans in the near future. Zak Brown said the 33-year-old wanted to stay in F1.

I have no regrets and am proud of the work I did for McLaren, especially the win in Monza, last season," he said.

I enjoy working with everyone at McLaren and will be giving my all for the rest of the season.

I've never been more motivated to compete and be a part of a sport that I love so much.

The two men said they were surprised they had not been able to make it work with the Australian.

He said it himself, and we simply didn't manage as a team to make him feel comfortable in the car.

Unfortunately, we didn't make it work.

To pull off performance, an F1 driver needs to be fully one with the car. We were not able to get Daniel as comfortable with the car as Lando was because of all the comments he made about the challenges.

We put in a lot of effort to help him, and he did the same. We weren't able to get these percentages unlocked.