Something “switches” in the head of Lando Norris come Q3, claims Juan Pablo Montoya, as he urged Norris that this can not continue.

The F1 2025 title battle between McLaren duo Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris reached a major checkpoint in Canada as they collided for the first time, an incident triggered by Norris and one for which he instantly took full responsibility. However, it is qualifying which has Montoya – a former McLaren driver – concerned when it comes to Norris.

Lando Norris: Q3 becoming a problem in F1 2025?

Having made an error on his first push lap for pole in Canada, Norris would be restricted to P7 only on the grid at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, though his recovery drive was going well until he clipped Piastri’s rear tyre down the main straight as the McLarens battled over P4.

That sent Norris slamming into the outside of the pit wall, sealing his elimination and triggering a late Safety Car to take the pack across the line, Piastri finishing P4 and extending his Drivers’ Championship lead over Norris from 10 to 22 points.

Montoya would tell a gambling platform that for Norris, “the whole Q3 situation is getting out of hand”, adding: “In recent weeks it seems that he has the situation better under control and that he is even a bit better than Oscar Piastri, but when he reaches Q3, he just doesn’t get a good lap out of it.

“That’s difficult to see, because he has more speed than Oscar. But Oscar is always the one who picks up the pieces in the end.”

The qualifying head-to-head standings for F1 2025 thus far show a 6-3 lead for Piastri over Norris, while Piastri is 2-0 up in Sprint qualifying, and Montoya theorised that somewhere in Norris’ mentality, the arrival of Q3 flicks a switch, Montoya warning the Brit that thinking he cannot afford to mess up now, often induces an error.

“Lando is just too emotional,” Montoya claimed. “I really like him, so I really feel for him in terms of his emotions. He puts himself in a more difficult situation every time.

“He is calm all weekend and executes everything well, but then we get to Q3 and something seems to switch in his head. He thinks: ‘I can’t mess this up now’. But yes, if you think about not messing something up, you often mess it up anyway.”

And as for the collision between the McLarens come race day, Montoya felt that Norris had been “really unnecessarily impatient” having “already done all the hard work”.

“He had a chance to pass Oscar, but he simply didn’t take it,” Montoya – a winner of seven grands prix – continued. “You have to force Oscar to make a mistake, rather than you making the mistake yourself.”

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While McLaren already appear out of sight on their way to back-to-back Constructors’ titles, their lead over P2 Mercedes 175 points, Piastri and Norris cannot afford too many tangles in their Drivers’ title bid, with Max Verstappen only 43 points off top spot.

And as McLaren team principal Andrea Stella spoke to the media following the Canadian Grand Prix, the topic of team orders was brought up.

“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,” he said.

“Rather than every time that we have proximity between the two cars, then having control from the pit wall. 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.”

After a free weekend, F1 2025 resumes with the Austrian Grand Prix at the Red Bull Ring.

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