Lando Norris joined McLaren in 2019 and has spent the entirety of his career to date with the papaya outfit. Throughout his time, Carlos Sainz, Daniel Ricciardo, and now Oscar Piastri have been his teammates and Norris insists that he has learned a lot from them.
2023 is the first time Norris has a teammate who is lesser experienced than him, with Piastri being a rookie. In his first two seasons, Sainz was his teammate and the Spaniard outperformed him for the most part. Ricciardo joined McLaren in 2021 and was expected to lead the team in terms of results, but Norris got the better of him in both of their seasons together as teammates.
Piastri beats McLaren teammate, drawing praise from former F1 world champion https://t.co/9eLFtGlWcQ
— ABC News (@abcnews) March 19, 2023
Now that Norris is the ‘experienced’ driver in the team, the pressure falls on him to become a leader within the outfit. However, in an interview with Lissie Mackintosh, the Bristol-born driver insists that his job at the team remains the same as it was in the last four years.
Daniel Ricciardo & Carlos Sainz taught Lando Norris about the future
McLaren as a team isn’t in a very good place at the moment. The Woking-based outfit took a step backward in terms of performance in 2022, and that was the year Norris signed a bumper four-year deal with them. 2023 has been worse for the team and Norris so far, with two P17 finishes in the first two races of the season.
Being under pressure at McLaren is not easy right now, and Norris does not want to wear the team leader crown. Norris insists that not a lot has changed with Piastri replacing Ricciardo at the team. Even when he was the lesser experienced driver, his focus was to get the best out of the car at his disposal, and that objective remains unchanged.
Norris went on to talk about something his former teammates Ricciardo and Sainz taught him. “Formula 1 is not only about the now but it’s about the future as well,” Norris shared. “How you prepare the car for ’24, ’25 and so on.”
Norris gives glimpse of McLaren’s long term goals
In the interview, Norris reiterates his desire to win with McLaren before even considering a move away. He acknowledges the fact that not winning races in the short term is annoying, but that the focus remains on bring the McLaren name back to the top in the coming years.
Norris reveals that in 2022, he worked hard with the team to develop a strong car for 2023. Even though the results are not visible on the track right now, the 23-year-old is confident that they have successfully laid the foundations for long term success in the years to come.
