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Yep, I don't think RB are ever going to have an equal driver pairing while Max is at the team, but currently McLaren are consistently scoring more than RB. Not an issue this year as the WCC is in the bag, but will absolutely be an issue at the start of 2024.
I don't think Ricciardo is going to be challenging Max for wins every race (I'm still pretty surprised at Perez's form for the first couple of races), but I'd bet on him being able to reliably bring home enough points to stop other teams out-scoring them.
His people seem to suggest that the initial versions of the car were more to his liking and the new parts/revisions are better for Max than for him. Apparently they asked to go back to the earlier version of the car and were told no.