SPA-FRANCORCHAMPS, Belgium (Reuters) – McLaren’s Lando Norris said he had no sympathy for team mate Daniel Ricciardo after the Australian’s split from the former champions was announced this week.
Ricciardo will leave the British-based team at the end of the season, paid off a year before his contract was due to expire.
“I don’t feel like you have to have sympathy for any driver because they’ve not been able to do as good a job,” Norris told reporters at the Belgian Grand Prix on Thursday, adding that “people will probably hate me for saying it”.
Ricciardo has scored a mere 19 points, with a highest position of sixth, this season compared to Norris’s 76 from 13 races and a third place at Imola.
Norris said he was just focusing on his own performance, rather than his team mate.
“It’s not my job to focus on someone else. I’m not a driver coach,” he said.
“I’m here to perform at my absolute best, and that’s about it. So it’s difficult when people start to have this expectation that it’s my job to also start doing these other things and helping and describing this and doing that.
“It’s also the case that if I don’t perform well for a few years that it could also be the end of my career and me driving in Formula One.”
(Reporting by Alan Baldwin in London, editing by Ed Osmond)
