McLaren F1 boss Zak Brown is supportive of driver Daniel Ricciardo's efforts, but feels his results continue to fall short of the team's expectations compared to that of teammate Lando Norris.
In Barcelona this past weekend, Ricciardo finished outside the points (P14) for a third time this season, while Norris finished eighth despite suffering with tonsillitis.
In an interview afterwards Ricciardo admitted he had struggled in the race.
"Yeah, I wasn't there from the start," said Ricciardo. "And it wasn't it wasn't like I had understeer – I mean, I did – but it was just overall lack of grip.
"I thought at the start of the race, it was very, very slow. I thought, okay, maybe, I don't know, temperatures just got too high or something with the tyres.
"You know, [at] the start you're obviously fighting cars and maybe things like that can happen. We did a three-stop race, so I have four sets of tyres today and was very, very slow on all of them so not sure. Really, really sad race."
For Spain, the MCL36 had been heavily upgraded but it did not seem to help Ricciardo make inroads to Norris' pace.
"Everyone obviously came in the weekend curious, you know, for how they're going to perform," Ricciardo said.
"And yeah, it's one of those races that it was so slow that you kind of nearly, it sounds bad to say, but like, I mean, you hope that something was wrong.
"Like you hope that we find something that is like, ‘oh, that's why' – because [it's] probably more concerning if we don't because, as I said, it wasn't like a tenth or two tenths off, it felt like over a second at times.
"I don't know that for a fact, but I certainly saw the cars pass me and pull away very quickly."
Last season, Ricciardo struggled with the car but little seems to have changed since the new generation of cars were introduced for the 2022 season.
In an interview with Sky Sports, McLaren boss Brown said they wanted to see Ricciardo match the performances shown by Norris.
"Lando definitely has an edge," Brown told Sky Sports. "We would obviously like to see Daniel much closer to Lando and have a good inter-team battle.
"Daniel is just not comfortable yet with the car, we're trying everything we can. Again it was a disappointing weekend.
"Short of Monza [Ricciardo's win at last year's Italian GP] and a few races, it's generally not kind of met his or our expectations, as far as what we were expecting.
"And I think all you can do is keep working hard as a team, keep communications going, keep pushing and hope that whatever is not kind of clicking at the moment clicks shortly."
Chequered flag at the #SpanishGP. ??
— McLaren (@McLarenF1) May 22, 2022
A hotly contested race in the sunshine. Points on the board, but we must continue working hard, team. ?????? pic.twitter.com/cOxdrjlP9O
Brown added that Ricciardo struggles could have to do with the fact that he is up against one of the best drivers in the world, in Norris.
"I think it also kind of points to how good Lando is," Brown added.
"When you look at the gap between Charles and Carlos [at Ferrari], the gap between Max and Sergio [at Red Bull], there are gaps between teammates and I think Lando is one of the best drivers in the world at the moment.
"I think it's also kind of a compliment to how good Lando is when you see the gap that exists."