Lando Norris Opens Up on Filling No.1 Driver Role at McLaren With Oscar Piastri

4 more races and Lando Norris will be joined by a new teammate at McLaren. Daniel Ricciardo and McLaren have decided to part ways mutually at the end of the season after the Australian could not deliver what was expected out of him for two years. They brought Alpine reserve driver Oscar Piastri as Ricciardo’s replacement.

Lando Norris hasn’t had the best season so far. The car simply lacks the pace to challenge race leaders Red Bull and Ferrari. They have even failed to match a struggling Mercedes.

Lando Norris on assuming leadership role after Oscar’s arrival

Lando Norris had a fun little outing with Ted Kravitz in Japan before the race. They did some wall climbing and indoor golfing before sitting down for the interview for Sky Sports. They talked about Oscar’s arrival next season and Lando assuming the role of the leader.

Lando said, “I guess you have a guy with more experience which will be me and I can refer more back to points of previous seasons and I’ll be able to refer to this year’s car and that’s something Oscar won’t be able to do so there’s a lot of things because of my experience that I’ll be able to use and help the team more in some ways but as a different driver there’s a lot of things Oscar can also bring to the team.”

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Kravitz asked Norris if he thought he was ready to win if they have a capable car. Lando replied, “I’d say so. I look forward to those times. It’s not something I want to say, like at this moment I could beat every other driver on the grid because I know going up against Max and Charles is far from easy. So, I just look forward to those battles and guys that I’ve never really raced against Charles necessarily and Max.”

Norris afraid of getting “hurt” by Piastri

Norris recently talked with racingnews365. There, he talked about how your teammate in F1 is your biggest competitor. He said that being beaten by your teammate is the last thing you want to happen.

Talking about looking forward to racing with Oscar Piastri next season, Lando said that it would “hurt” him a lot if Oscar beat him next season.

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Norris is currently sitting in 7th place in drivers’ standings with 101 points. Teammate Daniel Ricciardo is far behind trailing in 12th position with just 29 points.