Lando Norris Claims Axed Daniel Ricciardo Wasn’t Competitive Enough at McLaren; Hopes Better from Rookie Oscar Piastri

Daniel Ricciardo got axed from McLaren at the end of the 2022 season following a chaotic silly season. The Woking-based team chose Oscar Piastri over the Honeybadger.

Ricciardo had been with McLaren for the past two years and he consistently struggled with the car and was outperformed by his teammate on multiple occasions.

Norris who is not teamed up with Piastri for the upcoming season believes that Ricciardo was not competitive enough during his stint with the British team and that is something that they have lacked.

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Lando Norris puts pressure on Oscar Piastri’s shoulders

Oscar Piastri is heading into his first F1 season with a ton of pressure to perform and too many judgemental eyes on him.

And his new teammate, Norris, has added more to it by saying that he needs his rookie teammate to be more competitive than Ricciardo. Norris believes that more competitiveness from Piastri will help him to unlock more potential, which he was not able to achieve with Ricciardo.

Piastri already has all eyes on him ever since his infamous snubbing of Alpine seat after Fernando Alonso shockingly moved to Aston Martin.

The young Australian had been Alpine’s reserve driver, so the French team allegedly without consulting him announced Piastri as their driver for 2023. But Piastri with his managers was able to find a loophole in his contract and wriggled his way out of the team.

Daniel Ricciardo’s F1 career has come full circle

Ever since his departure from Red Bull at the end of the 2018 season, the 33-year-old has been on a tough journey in his F1 career.

Being one of the most popular drivers on the grid, there was more that was expected out of him but all the bad lucks piled up against him and saw a massive decline in his performance.

In 2019, Ricciardo took a seat in the Renault F1 team(now Alpine) to build up his record in the sport. While there were some occasions that saw him succeed and get to the top, it was not enough.

After spending 2-years with Renault, Ricciardo decided to move to McLaren to achieve the same goal but that did not work out for him either. Other than his only surprise win at the Italian GP in 2021, the Honeybadger largely struggled with the car and was often in the back of the grid.

All of this combined led McLaren into deciding to let Ricciardo go and choose the 2021 F2 champion. In another shock move, the 8-GP winner decided to sign a deal with Red Bull as their reserve driver for the 2023 season.

It seems like his life has come full circle but given Ricciardo’s plan to get back to the racing grid in 2024, the question of how his third driver role with the Milton-Keynes-based team will help him in achieving that remains.

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