McLaren driver Lando Norris once revealed what is said in the Formula 1 drivers’ Whatsapp group chat.
It is well documented that not all F1 drivers get on with each other.
For example, Lewis Hamilton’s friendship with Nico Rosberg turned sour during their battle to be world champion when they were teammates at Mercedes.
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During the 2024 season opener in Bahrain, RB teammates Daniel Ricciardo and Yuki Tsunoda did not particularly see eye to eye after a strategy call.
However, there are some drivers who get on, as McLaren star Norris revealed last year they have a group chat together.
He told the Fast and the Curious podcast: “It’s true. It’s not so much like ‘hey, we’re all mates’ - it’s a lot more for talking about things that can help us as drivers in terms of rules, regulations, it’s ‘how can we represent ourselves?’
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“I don’t know how much [George Russell] revealed, he’s like the head of it.”
Norris added: “It’s a little bit of everyone. We are all kind of chatting and working together to come up with different ideas.
“We’ve got Esteban [Ocon], we got Zhou [Guanyu], we’ve got Alex [Albon]. Everyone chats in it but I can’t find any memes.”
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Norris also went on to reveal that former F1 world champion James Hunt was used as the group’s profile picture.
Meanwhile, speaking on a previous episode of the same podcast, George Russell said: “It’s not like we’re sending banter in there day after day but there are occasions where something may have happened on track and suddenly people are sending memes in and whatever and it gets a bit out of control.”
The 2024 season’s opening race was easily won by Max Verstappen, who finished more than 10 seconds ahead of Red Bull teammate Sergio Perez and Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz.
F1 will return next weekend with the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, which will take place in Jeddah.
Topics: Formula 1, Lando Norris
Marcus Chan