LandoNorris says he has no sympathy for teammate Daniel Ricciardo, with theAustralian having struggled badly at McLaren this season. Ricciardohas just 19 points to Norris' 76 as the 2022 F1 season resumes with thisweekend's Belgian Grand Prix, and earlier this week it was announced that he will be leaving McLaren at the end of the season, despite hiscontract still having a year to run. "Ihate to say it, but I would say no," Norris told media, including RacingNews365.com ,when asked if he had any sympathy for Ricciardo's current predicament. "People willprobably hate me for saying it but it's difficult, because I never know if Imight encounter that in the future with this car, or with a different team orwhatever, so I never want to contradict myself going into the future, but I'vejust got to focus on my driving. "It'snot my job to focus on someone else, and I'm not a driver coach, I'm not hereto help and do those kinds of things. "I'mhere to perform at my absolute best and that's about it, so it's difficult whenpeople start to have an expectation that it's my job to also do these otherthings, when that's not really the case. "It's also thecase that if I don't perform well for a few years then it can also be the endof my career, the end of me driving in Formula 1, so I've got to focus onmyself for the majority of it. "Everydriver has to adapt to the scenarios that they're in, and that's what I feellike I've had to do."
Norris: Ricciardo was quicker at the start of 2022
Despitetheir contrasting fortunes since, Norris added that Ricciardo had started theseason as the quicker of the two McLarens, with the Briton having to workharder to adapt his driving style to the new generation of F1 cars. "It'snot a car that I've just been able to jump in and feel like I can just flowwith and perform exactly like I want," Norris said of McLaren's 2022challenger, the MCL36. "Atthe beginning of the year, Daniel was performing better than I was – in the pre-seasontests and stuff. "It looked like he could just go out naturally and drivethe car how he wanted to, and I had to start to learn a new way of drivingcompared to how I'd been used to driving the car for the last few years. "So I feel likeI've had to do a job of adapting and so has he, but I don't feel like you wouldhave to have sympathy for [another driver] because they have not been able todo as good of a job."
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