“It suited Daniel Ricciardo more”: Lando Norris feels his McLaren car is more suited to 33-year-old teammate

Lando Norris insists that the 2022 McLaren car is more suited to his teammate Daniel Ricciardo’s driving style.

Ricciardo joined McLaren in 2021 in a move that seemed exciting on paper. Norris, who is one of the biggest young talents in the sport was going to be his teammate, and two of the most popular drivers in F1 today would drive for McLaren.

His move to Surrey, however, turned into a nightmare very soon. The 2021 season was turbulent for Ricciardo. Since he was new to the team, a lot of people felt that it was only natural that he would struggle behind teammate Norris. Ricciardo made up for it by guiding the team to their first race win since 2012 in Monza.

Ricciardo came into the 2022 season with a lot more promise and was looking forward to shrugging off what was an underwhelming debut season. Unfortunately, things got even worse for the 33-year-old, who was comprehensively outperformed by Norris once again. This time McLaren decided to pull the plug early and announced that Ricciardo would leave the team at the end of the campaign.

A lot of people felt that a driver of Ricciardo’s caliber struggled at McLaren only because the team built their car around Norris. The young Brit, however, disagrees.

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Lando Norris struggled with ‘unsuitable’ McLaren car throughout 2022

McLaren’s 2022 F1 car has been given the name MCL36. After showing signs of huge progress in 2021, the team has taken a step backwards this year. They went toe to toe with Ferrari last season. While the Scuderia have gone one to become Title contenders, McLaren have fallen behind and are currently in 5th, 299 points behind Ferrari.

In spite of that, Norris managed to score points for the team on a almost consistent basis. He even bagged a podium finish at the Emilia-Romagna GP this April.

Norris, however, insists that people are wrong to assume that the car was suited to him. In fact, the 22-year-old is adamant that his teammate Ricciardo found the car more drivable in the initial stages of the season.

“There have been things said,” Norris stated. “That Ricciardo doesn’t suit the car. And everyone thinks that I do suit the car. The car is made around me and all of that stuff. But it couldn’t be more untrue.”

“Not that I hate driving the car I am driving now. But it’s very unsuited to my driving style. I would say at the beginning of the year it suited Daniel a lot more than it suited me. In terms of how you had to drive it.”

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