Amid Daniel Ricciardo Struggles, Lando Norris Breaks Popular McLaren Conspiracy Leading To Aussie Driver’s Exit: “That Could Not Be More Untrue”

Even though he has zero wins this season, McLaren driver Lando Norris has been praised for his impressive performaces. Norris is admittedly not happy with his performance this season. With six podium finishes in the last three seasons, a lot is riding on this young rising driver. Nonetheless, the racer ain’t happy with his performances lately. He says he isn’t very comfortable with the McLaren 2022 car.

A lot of drivers in the field, including Max Verstappen, have claimed that the car didn’t suit Daniel Ricciardo‘s driving style. And so, a lot of people believed that the MCL36 is probably made around Norris’ needs, considering he was indeed doing better than Daniel this season.

Lando Norris shed light on this matter on the podcast Beyond the Grid a few weeks ago. He said, “There have been things said that [Daniel] doesn’t suit the car and stuff, and everyone thinks that I do suit the car and the car is made around me, but it couldn’t be more untrue. Not that I hate driving the car I am driving now, but it is 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. And that is something I really struggled with at the beginning of the season. I am coping with, or adapted to it a lot more now. I would say more well suited to it.”

“I’ve had to adapt a lot more to the car. There is not a lot more the team can do for me in terms of the car. They just make it as quick as possible… I request things and say ‘this is the direction I want to go in.’ But it’s not like they just go and focus on that in the wind tunnel. I feel like I am driving a pretty similar car in terms of characteristics as the car I drove in my first year in Formula 1 [in 2019]. It’s changed in little ways but nothing I would say now is more adapted to me than in my first year of racing,” he concluded.

Read More: New F1 Record Awaits Lando Norris – But He Won’t Be Celebrating It

All the swift moves that Norris has been projecting might put Oscar Piastri in a difficult position.

Lando Norris May Be a Threat To Oscar Piastri

In the coming season, as Daniel Ricciardo departs from the McLaren team to take up his position as the reserve driver at Mercedes, Oscar Piastri will be partnering up with the young racer, Lando Norris.

Former world champion and ex-Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg believes that Oscar will have to put up a fair fight with Norris considering how well the young lad has been performing.

They will be pitted against each other and if Oscar fails to outdo his partner, he may very well face the possibility of exiting F1 altogether.

With a quick chat with Sky Sports F1, Nico said, “It’s a brave move by Oscar, it really is. It is either he beats Lando or he’s out basically of the sport, so it’s really, really tough, but he believes in himself. And if you think you’re that good, you’ve got to go for it.”

Furthermore, he claimed, “It is going to be tough for Oscar to do well there. Lando is world-class, he’s world championship material there so it’s not going to be easy to go there and do better than Daniel.”

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Big changes upcoming for McLaren in the coming season. Having said that, it won’t be easy letting go of Ricciardo, who just hasn’t had the best couple of years lately. Learning from their shortcomings, will McLaren come up with a better model of their car to suit their drivers or would their car problems continue to persist?