Lando Norris says that he has no sympathy for Daniel Ricciardo following his early exit from the McLaren Formula 1 team.
Ricciardo joined McLaren at the start of the 2021 season but has struggled for form at the Woking-based squad alongside Norris.
Earlier this week, McLaren announced that it would part ways with Ricciardo at the end of the current campaign, slashing his deal short by one season.
Speaking to media on Thursday, Norris detailed that both he and Ricciardo often have different requests regarding car performance, and that he himself is still not comfortable with the MCL36 challenger.
However, Norris stated that he has been able to overcome car balance issues that are presented throughout race weekends.
Ricciardo previously described McLaren’s 2021 car as being “peculiar” to drive, while former McLaren driver Carlos Sainz has also commented on the difficulty of navigating the Woking-based squad’s entries.
When asked if he has sympathy for Ricciardo and his struggles given the Australian has previously excelled with machines at Red Bull and Renault, Norris replied: “I would hate to say it, but I would say no.
“People will probably hate me for saying it but it’s difficult because I never know if I might encounter that in the future with this car or with a different team or whatever, so I never want to contradict myself going into the future, but I’ve just got to focus on my driving.
“It’s not my job to focus on someone else, and I’m not a driver coach, I’m not here to help and do those kind of things.
“I’m here to perform at my absolute best and that’s about it. So it’s difficult when people start to have an expectation that it’s my job to also do these other things and helping and describing this and doing that when that’s not really the case.”
Norris says that he is aware that his career could be placed in jeopardy if he drops the focus from himself.
“It’s also the case that if I don’t perform well for a few years then it can also be the end of my career, the end of me driving in Formula 1,” he said.
“I’ve got to focus on myself for the majority of it. Every driver has to adapt to the scenarios that they’re in and that’s what I feel like I’ve had to do.
“It’s not a car that I’ve just been able to jump in and feel like I can just flow with and perform exactly like I want.
“At the beginning of the year Daniel was performing better than I was – in the pre-season tests and stuff – and it looked like he could just go out naturally and drive the car how he wanted to, and I had to start to learn a new way of driving compared to how I’d been used to driving the car for the last few years.
“So I feel like I’ve had to do a job of adapting and so has he, but I don’t feel like for any driver you would have to have sympathy for them because they have not been able to do as good of a job.”
Discussion about this post