Lando Norris says his relationship with McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri is "better than ever" despite the pair's title battle approaching its climax.
Norris leads Piastri by 24 points in the Drivers' Championship ahead of this weekend's Las Vegas Grand Prix, which marks the start of a triple-header to conclude this season.
Historically in Formula 1, intra-team battles for the title can become fierce on and off the track, as was the case with Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg at Mercedes in the mid-2010s, or Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost at McLaren in the late 1980s.
Norris said: "It's still the same. And I'm very happy. I think we both are happy - that's how it is. We both, I think, have a lot of respect for one another, and we both understand the position that we're in.
"We both treat the world of driving versus just personally, what we're like away from the track, quite differently. That's how I've always been. I feel like I've always got on well with my team-mates since go-karting.
"I've always wanted to, because it just makes my life more fun, more enjoyable, and that's also why I'm here. It's because I love what I do. So the more I can do that, the better."
Norris and Piastri have made contact with each other three times this year - in Canada, Singapore and Austin, but McLaren have seemingly created a culture of respect to maintain a strong relationship between the drivers.
McLaren have posted fewer videos on social media of the drivers together as the season has gone on, but Norris says he and Piastri requested to do less media for the team.
"We very much understand that we work for McLaren, we want the best for the team. We work very hard," he continued.
"As drivers you always try and maximise your own performance, more than anything. When we step out of the car, we can still have a joke, we still have laughs in our debriefs and we still enjoy everything away from the track. I think it's still better than ever in many ways.
"I think we're still very different people. He's very just calm down to earth, very relaxed, always looks, just cool. That's something that I also admire quite a bit, just how plain sailing he is with a lot of things. It's a good attribute to have.
"It's always hard to read what mood he's in, but, probably for me, you see more visually kind of the moods I'm in. It's not like we go and play golf together and do things like I have done with Carlos [Sainz] but we're still different people, but in terms of relationship, we get along well. We still work together well, and I think it's still better than it's ever been."
Piastri, who is looking to become Australia's third F1 world champion after Alan Jones and Jack Brabham, agrees with Norris' sentiment.
"I think it's either exactly the same or, honestly, probably better than it has been," he said on the Beyond the Grid podcast this week.
"It's better, if anything, because we just know each other more now we've been together for our third year as teammates, so we just slowly got to know each other more and more.
"Maybe there are short-lived emotions off the track, but I think we're both quite good at just letting things die down and again, leaving things on the track."
Norris has converted pole into dominant wins at the last two races in Mexico City and Sao Paulo to establish himself as favourite in the title race.
But, it could be tricky to make it a hat-trick of wins as McLaren have struggled in Las Vegas since the event joined the calendar in 2023.
The cold, night conditions mean a fast car at other tracks during the season is not necessarily quick in Las Vegas. However, Norris says he "experimented" with his driving in the second half of last year's race on his way to sixth and discovered some pace.
"From the last two years, it's certainly been the hardest race of the year that we've had," said the 26-year-old.
"My expectations are not to the same level as Mexico and Brazil, where we've been performing very well for a good number of years.
"But we've had an excellent year, and we've improved in places that we've struggled in the past. I'm certainly coming in with more confidence than in previous years, but not the same amount of confidence going into the past few races that we've had.
"You never know, expectations are still high, I'm still coming here to win and to want to repeat the last few weekends I've had, but I think it's going to be trickier, for sure, than the last couple."
McLaren team principal Andrea Stella revealed last month that Piastri can improve in low grip conditions compared to Norris, which could be underlined this weekend.
Piastri says there have been "lots of reasons" for the recent "tough weekends" and is hoping to get the most from himself in Las Vegas.
"Vegas is very unique in the conditions, downforce level, temperatures and track surface," he said.
"Just trying to get the most out of what we can do, drive as well as I can, adapt to whatever it needs, get the car in the right place and do that as often as I can. That's what I aim to do every weekend and this weekend is the same."
Norris has outscored team-mate Piastri in the last six races to turn around a 34-point deficit following the Dutch Grand Prix at the end of August.
The McLaren duo were regularly close on pace throughout the season but a gap has grown recently, with Piastri unable to get within two tenths of Norris in Qualifying at the last three rounds.
McLaren have brought new parts to a race weekend just once since the summer break, so Norris puts down his strong form to "a constant amount of work".
"It's not like I've gone 'ah, this is how the car needs to be driven'. I still struggle now - one weekend to the next it changes," he explained.
"In Mexico, Austin, completely different feelings, to Brazil, again, completely different feelings. It's not like you figure it out then everything's easy. Every weekend, you just have to adapt a lot to how the car wants to be driven. But it was never one thing. It's just a lot of things that I've been doing on the simulator.
"I've been spending time with my team on trying to figure [things] out and adapt to having better procedures of working in FP1, FP2, FP3, to try and understand more about the car and understand the way it needs to be driven.
"I've just had to step up more than ever in terms of my work ethic, my understanding of all of these things, get more out of the people around me, then get more out of me, at the same time, and just work more than ever have than before anyway. So no magic thing, just work away from the track."
Friday November 21
12am: Las Vegas GP Practice One (session starts at 12.30am)*
1.55am: F1 Academy Practice*
2.50am: Team Principals' Press Conference
3.45am: Las Vegas GP Practice Two (session starts at 4am)*
5.25am: F1 Academy Qualifying*
6.10am: The F1 Show*
Saturday November 22
12.15am: Las Vegas GP Practice Three (session starts at 12.30am)*
2.10am: F1 Academy Race One*
3am: Las Vegas GP Qualifying build-up*
4am: LAS VEGAS GP QUALIFYING*
6am: Ted's Qualifying Notebook*
Sunday November 23
12.15am: F1 Academy Race Two
2.30am: Grand Prix Sunday: Las Vegas GP build-up*
4am: THE LAS VEGAS GRAND PRIX*
6am: Chequered Flag: Las Vegas GP reaction*
7am: Ted's Notebook*
*also live on SportNews Main Event
Formula 1's thrilling title race continues with the Las Vegas Grand Prix this weekend, live on SportNews F1.
