Norris will lean on Verstappen for tips on Ricciardo

Lando Norris says he will seek tips from Max Verstappen to find out what to expect from having Daniel Ricciardo as a teammate in Formula 1.

Norris and Ricciardo will become teammates at McLaren next season when the latter makes the switch from Renault to replace Carlos Sainz, who is heading to Ferrari for 2021 as Sebastian Vettel’s successor.

Verstappen spent two-and-a-half years alongside Ricciardo at Red Bull and beat the Australian in their final year as teammates together in 2018 before Ricciardo left for Renault.

Despite having experienced Ricciardo’s character throughout his rookie F1 campaign, Norris admits he knows little about how Ricciardo operates within a team environment.

“It’s hard to know what to expect until you are really there,” Norris said during an Instagram live with Sky Sports.

“Before 2018, no one really had the same perspective of Carlos until last year. He really shone a lot more and his personality came out a lot more.

“I want to say that was a bit down to me and how open I was as a teammate but there was never these memes about Carlos in 2018 or before that. In 2019 and 2020 everything exploded a lot more.

“So, from the outside you never really know what to expect, or know much about a driver until you work with them. That was the same for me with Carlos.

“It’s the same with Daniel. Obviously I know Daniel a little bit more than I did Carlos going into the season.

“But there’s still a lot of things I don’t know with how he works and how sneaky he is with things - more behind the scenes kind of stuff. I will find out next year.”

Norris revealed Verstappen provided him with “a lot of good tips” before Sainz’s arrival at McLaren and he now hopes to find out how to get under Ricciardo’s skin.

“Max gives me a lot of good tips, he knew a lot about Carlos,” he added. “He knows a lot about Daniel. That’s part of it, you’ve got to get to know your teammates.

“As much as you want to get along, and sometimes they don’t, you want to know what their weaknesses are and their strengths are and so on. If anyone can tell me them then that’s a benefit.

“You want to have fun in F1 and that’s what I want to do, but at the same time you need to work well with your teammate and as a team, but your biggest competitor is also your teammate.

“It’s going to be tough and there’s going to be a lot of things I need to learn from Daniel, but whoever has tips on what makes Daniel angry, I’m sure Max will be the guy to ask.”