Daniel Ricciardo revealed that he was impressed by his McLaren teammate Lando Norris’ form over the 2021 championship.
2021 was the first season of Daniel Ricciardo in the McLaren team alongside teammate Lando Norris. While the Australian struggled to adapt to the new team, Norris pushed the car to limits and delivered a spectacular performance.
Norris finished the 2021 season at sixth place with more than double Ricciardo’s points tally. Ricciardo admitted that he was impressed by Norris’ form throughout the season.
When asked if he was surprised by Norris over the course of the season, the Australian said that he did not know how far the young Brit could “push the scale” before they teamed up.
“In a way I was… I don’t want to say surprised, because there’s 20 of us here out of many in the world who are trying to get here, so I’m always expecting someone very talented, someone fast,” said Ricciardo.
“But I guess the scale, you’re not really sure [about it]. I’ll be honest, probably like most of the world in F1, I think I knew Lando was good, but I didn’t know where the scale went to, and I think he pushed that scale as high as it could probably go last year.”
“Again, I don’t know another word for surprise, because I wasn’t surprised. I guess I was impressed – maybe that’s a better word – with his skill, with the level he took the car to.”
“That was obviously at times for me difficult because I was not always there. But it was also encouraging to see that the car could be put to that level. It was for me to then try and figure out [how to improve].”
Also Read: Tom Holland hints at a future collab with the McLaren star Lando Norris
Daniel Ricciardo thinks Max and Lando have more similarities
Comparing Norris with his previous teammates Sebastian Vettel and Max Verstappen, Ricciardo made some intriguing observations.
“Off the track, everyone’s been pretty different. Vettel just came out of four titles; he was the older guy in the team and I was the rookie.”
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“He had a very mature approach; it was, ‘This is what I want, but he did it respectfully. He was kind of as you would expect him to be, with that German efficiency.”
“[There are] probably more similarities to Lando and Max. Lando still gets into quite a bit of detail, I would say. Max is probably more off feel; Lando might be a bit more on the technical interpretation.”
Also Read: Lando Norris reveals his role in the new season of Netflix’s Drive to Survive
