“Amazing how the tiny differences make up those tenths and hundreds!”- Why is Lando Norris massively outperforming McLaren teammate Daniel Ricciardo?

Lando Norris has massively outperformed McLaren teammate Daniel Ricciardo since the latter’s arrival in the team in 2021. 

Ricciardo’s move to McLaren has not worked out for either party till date. He had a very slow start to life in Surrey last year, but made up for it when he led McLaren to their first race win since 2012.

Other than that, he hasn’t had many memorable moments with the Woking outfit. On top of that, his teammate Lando Norris seems to be performing extremely consistently. He has outperformed Ricciardo on all aspects, and it has put him under a lot of pressure.

It’s unusual for a driver of Ricciardo’s caliber to take so much time to find his feet. Team CEO Zak Brown revealed that he and McLaren expected more from him, and that the Aussie is still not comfortable with the car. 2022 in particular has been woeful for him as he’s currently 11th in the Drivers’ standings with 11 points to his name.

There are differences in approach to driving between the two. Norris has brought more out of the MCL36, which has resulted in him finding better results.

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Lando Norris carries more speed into corners than Daniel Ricciardo does

In a detailed YouTube video by Marcel Fischer, the difference in driving styles between Norris and Ricciardo was carefully pointed out. It showed a side by side comparison of the pairs’ Q2 run in Imola earlier this season.

Norris finished that session about 7 tenths faster than Ricciardo. Breaking it down into different parts however, suggests that the 23-year old likes to carry more speed into the corners than Ricciardo does. In the exit of the corners, the latter loses a little bit of time momentarily, which he later capitalizes for.

However, as a whole he loses a lot of time in the corners, which ultimately falls to Norris’ advantage. According to the data, throughout the 19 corners in Imola, he loses about 38 thousands of a second per corner to the Brit, which when added up is a lot.

Ricciardo’s efforts in the MCL36 are not getting converted into good results. He needs to pick up pace quickly, because there are a lot of young up and coming drivers who are waiting for that second McLaren seat.

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