Calling it an “unnecessary” move from Lando Norris on his team-mate Oscar Piastri in Canada, Damon Hill stated his agreement with an F1 fan questioning Norris’ racecraft.

McLaren duo Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri went to battle over P4 in the closing stages of the Canadian Grand Prix, but the result was contact, ending Norris’ race in what could prove a significant blow to his World Championship hopes.

Lando Norris ‘racecraft’ under microscope after Piastri crash

With three laps to go in the race, Norris thought he had spotted a gap down the inside of Piastri as the McLarens powered towards the opening chicane, but the gap Norris believed he saw in the heat of battle was not there, resulting in him hitting Piastri’s rear wheel, followed by the wall.

While Piastri drove on to finish P4, Norris skidded down the outer side of the pit wall to his point of retirement from the Canadian Grand Prix, and immediately over team radio took full responsibility for the incident.

And it was a collision which 1996 World Champion Damon Hill took a dim view of.

In a post on X (formerly known as Twitter), Hill wrote: “Oh dear. Oh deary me. Unnecessary.”

In response to that verdict from Hill – a winner of 22 grands prix – a fan raised a major question mark over Norris.

“Lando is fast but his racecraft is becoming more questionable,” the fan replied to Hill. “No patience to take another opportunity later in the lap. He would without a doubt got past him.”

And that was a statement on Norris which Hill fell in line with.

“I have to agree with you,” Hill replied.

Oscar Piastri vs Lando Norris: McLaren F1 2025 head-to-head scores

👉 F1 2025: Head-to-head qualifying statistics between team-mates

👉 F1 2025: Head-to-head race statistics between team-mates

With Piastri scoring 12 points to Norris’ zero after that late drama in Canada, it means Piastri’s Championship lead over his team-mate has grown from 10 points to 22 with 10 rounds of the season gone.

Canadian GP runner-up Max Verstappen meanwhile has trimmed his deficit to Piastri and top spot to 43 points.

McLaren accepted that such a moment between Piastri and Norris would come as they both battle for a first Drivers’ title, and after it arrived in Canada, team boss Andrea Stella was quizzed post-race on the possibility of team orders coming into play for the McLaren duo.

“The being free to race and the being clear as to how we go racing is a value of racing, and it’s a value of racing that we want to try and exercise and respect as much as we can,” Stella told the media when asked if McLaren could review its hands-off approach to team orders if Norris and Piastri can’t race cleanly.

“Rather than every time that we have proximity between the two cars, then having control from the pit wall. [Racing] like that, racing may soon become a bit of an artifact.

“We want to give Lando and Oscar opportunities to race and opportunities to be, at the end of the season, in the position that they deserve to be in based on their merit, based on their performance, and the racing quality that they have expressed through the season.

“Rather than being at the end of the season and realising that the points have been controlled more by the team, rather than the quality of their driving.

“This is not necessarily a simple and straight exercise, but we want to try and do it as as best as we can.

“So I don’t foresee that today’s episode will change our approach from this point of view – if anything, it will reinforce and strengthen that the principles we have requires more caution by our drivers.

“Because, if we say that there should be no contact between the two McLarens, we need to have the margins to make sure that we have no contact – even if in a DRS situation, the car may get almost a little bit sucked onto the other car and cause this kind of misjudgement as to the distance.”

McLaren has a free weekend to reset after Canada, before the F1 2025 campaign resumes with the Austrian Grand Prix.

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