Following Zak Brown's claim that he has not met McLaren's expectations, Daniel Ricciardo vows to see out his contract, insisting that he is his own worst critic.

Though many put Brown's comments down to the American's desire to share his opinion on anything and everything should a microphone be in the vicinity of his face, the claim that Ricciardo has not met McLaren's expectations naturally set social media alight.

Understandably, some thought this might be the first step in a masterplan to drop the popular Australian in favour of an American driver, while others wondered whether Brown might actually have a point and Ricciardo has simply lost his mojo.

"It's not false, it's pretty true," Ricciardo replied at today's press conference in Monaco, when asked about Brown claim that "short of Monza and a few races£, the Australian has "generally not kind of met his or our expectations, as far as what we were expecting".

"Firstly comments, I don't take them personal," he continued. "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 tenth or twelfth places," he admitted. 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."

Asked if he is confident of seeing out his contract, which runs out at the end of next season, the Australian said: "Yes, it's clear. I've got a contract until the end of 2023.

"COVID messed me up, so I just got confused with the years," he added, referring to the fact that in Barcelona he had said talks over a new contract - including 2023 - would take place in the summer.

"We basically found an issue on the car," he said, referring to last weekend's race, which he had previously described as a "really, really sad race". "It’s rectified and coming into this weekend we’re all sorted. It’s like a fresh start, let’s say.

"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," he admitted. "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."

Check out our Friday gallery from Monaco, here.