Lando Norris feels that the outside perception of his relationship with Daniel Ricciardo was "completely incorrect". During his first two seasons at McLaren, Norris was known to be good friends with his then-teammate Carlos Sainz. However, the Briton says that any notions of him not getting on well with Ricciardo – who replaced Sainz at the Woking-based squad – are not accurate. "Me and Carlos still get along very well," Norris told media, including RacingNews365.com , at the launch of McLaren's 2023 F1 car, the MCL60. "I think everyone had a bit of a perception that me and Daniel didn't, although that was completely incorrect."
Norris on Ricciardo relationship
Norris insists that, while he was "competitive" with Ricciardo on track, the two shared a good relationship away from the circuit. "We were very competitive, we wanted to beat each other, so maybe that was the vibe that was given off," Norris continued. "But we always worked together very well as a team. I think that was very important for us. [We were] always happy to help each other, but at the same time, always wanted to beat each other. That's just the way it is between drivers. "We were good friends, we had a lot of good laughs and so on. "I think, what me and Carlos had or just the level of respect we had for each other, was just higher than what most people see between drivers in Formula 1."
How will Norris/Piastri dynamic work?
Norris is now joined by his third teammate in F1, Oscar Piastri, who begins his his rookie season with McLaren. Ahead of the 2023 campaign getting underway, Norris believes that the pair can work well together. "With Oscar, it's still very early days," he explained. "We've only actually worked together and been working on the same day probably a handful of times so far, either here at MTC [McLaren Technology Centre] or if I've done tests last season and so on. But so far, so good. "It is still a very different environment, working here and working at a test compared to when you're actually at a race weekend and you're competing for the first time. "But he's a lovely guy, very hard worker, and I see no reason why we shouldn't be able to continue McLaren's reputation over the last few years of being a very good team. "[We can] help each other when we need to help each other, because we still have the same goal. We both want to win races, we both want to be champions, and we understand that we can't do that [at] this current time. "We don't have what we need, we don't have the machinery to do so. So, until then, we'll work well together and push ourselves and each other to get closer to the target."
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