Carlos Sainz and Lando Norris together form one of the best duos on the grid at McLaren. A duo we can enjoy this year. From next year Sainz will drive for Ferrari and Norris will have Daniel Ricciardo next to him as a replacement. That will undoubtedly create some nice situations, but Norris will miss his current teammate.
Pleasant surroundings
Norris hopes, with another season ahead of him, that they will at least have nice races, but he thinks it's a pity that Sainz will leave the team. In the Pink-podcast he says: "I hope we will have a few more races this year. It's actually quite sad that he's leaving, because we get along well, we've had a lot of laughs and that makes it a lot of fun for him and me".
"It's made for a nice environment to work in together for both of us. We help each other, but at the same time we are competitive and try to beat each other, as everyone knows. I'm going to miss that. I don't really have experience with new teammates or anything like that, so some things are going to change in a way that I don't know. But of course I'm gonna miss him."
Ricciardo
Lando Norris is someone who is in for a joke and the driver who is seen as the biggest clown of the paddock is of course Daniel Ricciardo. That could cause some amusing situations next year, but Norris notes that he doesn't know Ricciardo very well as a person yet.
"He's a really funny guy and we laughed a lot. We don't really talk to each other much, but the times we spoke at press conferences, track parades and things like that, we had really good times. From that point of view, I'm looking forward to it. But I don't know what's going to happen yet and I hope things stay the way they are."
"It's a very good environment for the team at the moment and everyone is working well together as a team. The most important thing is to continue that", concludes Norris.
Those two are the best of friends of all driver pairings presently. However, I am sure Daniel and Lando will get on like a house on fire as well and would be so nice to watch. It’s nice to see the younger generation drivers get on so well with each other away from the track. We see Charles, George, Lando, Alex and to an extent Max spending hours playing virtual games of late. So unlike in the olden days where drivers like Prost, Senna, Mansell, Lauda or Hunt don’t really get on with each other.
I think we can put Mansell-Piquet, and Prost-Senna as the only bitter teammates and rivalries from those times. Apart from those two pairings, drivers in the past have had always good camaraderie off-track and used to spend a lot of time together.
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