Months After Ugly McLaren Split, Daniel Ricciardo Receives Disdainful Backlash for Lando Norris’ Woes

Daniel Ricciardo could never get in a comfortable position on the racetrack during his 2 years at McLaren. The 1-2 finish at Monza in 2021 was the only highlight in an otherwise unstable stint with the Woking outfit. One good thing that came out of it was his brotherly relationship with Lando Norris, who he could rarely out-qualify. And a former F1 manager has blamed him for Norris’ woes in Qualifying at Spa.

Unlike Ricciardo, his successor at McLaren, Oscar Piastri is giving tough competition to Norris. F1 expert Peter Windsor had pointed this out after the British GP. He felt that Norris can only succeed when an incompetent driver like Ricciardo was driving alongside, putting no pressure. But because the Honey Badger was never able to do so, Piastri’s speed in Q1 at the Belgian GP qualifying put Norris under colossal pressure. And because of that, he lost control of the car and drove it onto the gravel damaging the MCL60’s floor.

On his YouTube channel, Windsor said, “I have absolutely no doubt in my mind if Daniel Ricciardo had been in the other McLaren, as he was last year, Lando would not have gone off in Q1 today at Spa. I have no doubt about that. And that’s what we saw today. We saw the effect today of a super-quick shorter corner driver on a very, very talented finesse-y longer-corner driver, called Lando Norris.”

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Ricciardo is getting quite some attention from all stakeholder in the sport. Mostly positive but some negative as well. As for Norris, the pressure could’ve gotten to him. But he still managed to bring some humor during the post-Qualifying interviews.

Despite Completely Destroying the MCL60’s floor, Lando Norris Makes Humorous Remark While Showing Faith in His Mechanics

Lando Norris had quite the self-shunt in Q1. Luckily for him, he managed to make it safely out of the gravel without hitting the barriers. But he said he “completely destroyed” the floor of his MCL60. The Briton even made a funny comment on how usually some good ol’ tape does the job. But this time, tape couldn’t seal the deal.

Pos-qualifying, Norris told Sky Sports, “The whole thing [floor damage]. It can be repaired, I hope. Normally you can repair it. Tape is not going to help, we tried to tape it. [The mechanics] did a good job on getting as much as they can fixed but too much to be competitive today.”

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If his mechanics can translate his faith into results, the McLaren talisman should look to have a better Sprint Qualifying. But if Piastri keeps showing up like this, Norris could make more mistakes in an attempt to do better.