Lando Norris voiced his anger over repeated suggestions that he and Daniel Ricciardo did not see eye to eye during their time as McLaren team-mates.
For the past two seasons, they raced alongside each other for the Woking-based team. But that partnership came to an end a year earlier than originally planned, as McLaren chose to replace Ricciardo with F2 champion Oscar Piastri amid the more experienced Aussie's struggles for form and consistency.
Throughout their time together there were suggestions that there might have been some tension between Norris and his team-mate. Those rumours were stoked by the Brit himself when he made a blunt comment about not having any sympathy for Ricciardo despite the difficulties he was enduring.
"I hate to say it, but I would say no," said Norris earlier this year. "People will probably hate me for saying it and it's difficult, because I never know if I might encounter that in the future with this car or a different team, or whatever, so I never want to contradict myself going into the future.
"I've just got to focus on my driving and my job. It's not my job to focus on someone else and I'm not a driver coach. I'm not here to help and do those kinds of things." Speaking more recently about his relationship with Ricciardo, the 23-year-old believes people took that statement to mean he did not like the Aussie – but he insists that is not true.
"It just frustrates me when I see people trying to make it look like we hate each other or that we don't like each other, or have fun or whatever," said Norris. "I hate that people think that because there's not been one case where that's been the truth.
"Being honest, because of some certain comments that I've said, when it's regarding what it's been like some of the things Daniel's struggled with this car, and I've just been honest and said that it's not my job to help him. Those comments, people just for some reason take it as I don't like him, that I'm not friends with him and we don't get along.
"Then they just see like a headline and just want to believe everything like that. I don't know why else they would believe it." On the contrary, Norris says he has a lot of admiration for the eight-time race winner and wants to emulate some aspects of his character.
The Brit added: "I want to be like what Daniel is good at, knowing what the person he can be on a racetrack and the person he can be away from a race track and the respect he can have on either side of that platform. I think that’s what he's very good at – when he puts his helmet on, he becomes this guy. And when it's off, he's the fun guy."
