Daniel Ricciardo has made it clear he has a Formula 1 contract at McLaren for 2023, in light of remarks from CEO Zak Brown over his ongoing struggles.

After an underwhelming drive to 12th place in last weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix, Brown expressed his frustration over Ricciardo’s performances when speaking to Sky Sports.

Ricciardo joined McLaren last year but has had difficulty adapting to the characteristics of McLaren’s car, leading to Brown to say earlier this week “it’s generally not kind of met his or our expectations”.

This has led some to believe Brown’s comments were a sign that Ricciardo’s future at the team is uncertain unless he turns around his form.

But when Brown’s remarks were put to him at the Monaco Grand Prix, Ricciardo accepted the criticism and insisted he was focused on making on-track gains.

“It’s not false, it’s pretty true,” Ricciardo said, as quoted by Motorsport.com. “Firstly comments, I don’t take them personal. My skin is tanned, beautiful and also thick. No one’s going to be harder on me than myself.

“I don’t want to be racing around in 10th or 12th places. It’s been a little bit more certainly testing at times in terms of trying to get up and maximise myself in this car. But we’re working together hard at it. The team wants it, I want it, and we are just working through it.”

Ricciardo signed a three-year deal with McLaren that takes him through to the end of 2023, but in Barcelona he suggested he would need to discuss his future with the team in the summer.

Asked whether to not he would see out his McLaren contact, Ricciardo moved to clarify the matter.

“Yes, it’s clear,” he said. “I got a contract until the end of 2023. COVID messed me up, so I just got confused with the years.”

In the aftermath of Ricciardo’s disappointing result in Spain, McLaren discovered some issues on his car that contributed to his difficult race, which Ricciardo revealed had been fixed.

“We basically found an issue on the car,” said Ricciardo. “It’s rectified and coming into this weekend we’re all sorted. It’s like a fresh start, let’s say.”

Nevertheless, Ricciardo recognises he still needs to find a sweet-spot in the MCL36 in order to get the best out of it.

“There is still more that I would like to be getting out of it, which sometimes I can see and then sometimes it’s less clear,” Ricciardo said.

“I think we’ve also had a few things that have not gone let’s say our way and interrupted some of the sessions.

“It’s a combination of a few things, but I think even putting that aside it’s still been a little bit tricky for me to always gel 100% with the car and feel like I can pull out these spectacular laps.

“There’s been some races at times where it’s been good, but still honestly I’m still working on it. I’d love to say that I’m going to be half a second quicker and awesome every race from now, and I’m working to get that. But yeah, it’s still a bit of a process.”