Norris expects battle with Piastri: 'That's why he got brought into team'

Whereas in the past two seasons he worked alongside the experienced Daniel Ricciardo, from this year he is the senior at McLaren. Norris, therefore, thinks he should be gearing up for a different role at the British formation. He told GPblog and others that.

"I think I just have more responsibility this season from within the team," Norris states. "I think I already did have, you know, a big portion of that last year being the guy who was staying within the team, A guy you could figure out and understand last year's car slightly better and therefore try and use that for this year. And that's something that I can do and none of the other drivers or Oscar cannot."

"So I have a responsibility on bringing my knowledge and experience from Formula One into these years, coming up and that's something that Oscar will slowly get up to speed with or quickly get up to speed with. So yeah, more responsibility. I don't think there's anything more than that."

Norris expects tougher season

In 2022, Norris did not progress beyond the seventh final spot in the drivers' championship. Ricciardo finished 11th, 85 points behind Norris, preventing him from putting pressure on his former teammate. Norris expects this to be different with Piastri in the new season.

"That's why he got brought into the team," Norris explained. "So, absolutely, I think that's going to help us as a team. It's going force me to push the limit maybe that little bit more. It's actually something I was doing last year, but it might just be that he's able to push me more in different areas of my driving and that should only be able to help us take a step forward as a team and to also score more points as a team by the end of the season."

Enthusiasm Norris for Piastri

Norris is therefore very enthusiastic about Piastri for the time being. "It's a pleasure for me to be able to work alongside him. He's obviously a guy who's done insanely well and probably had one of the best track records ever before getting to Formula One. So, I'm not expecting it to be easy in any regard and he's obviously coming in young and with the mentality of wanting to come in and do extremely well from the beginning."

"I enjoy getting pushed. He's a lovely guy from what I know, from what I've seen so far and spoken to him about, he's a guy who is very down to earth and I enjoy working with people that are like that. So yes, I enjoyed, and I enjoy, and I look forward to the same time going back to Melbourne back to Australia and being in the crazy fans of Australia."