Formula 1 world champion Nico Rosberg has given his assessment of Lando Norris’ performance at the Canadian Grand Prix, describing his collision with team-mate Oscar Piastri as a “very strange misjudgment” from the McLaren driver.
Speaking on the Sky Sports F1 Show podcast, the former Mercedes driver identified what he believes to be Norris’ greatest weakness.
“Lando as you mentioned, it’s been his Achilles heel this year hasn’t it, his mental fragility, his doubts, and they came to the fore again now in Montreal,” he said. “It’s just when the pressure is highest there’s these little mistakes that creep in.”
He pointed to a pattern of issues that stemmed from Saturday’s qualifying. With one of the fastest cars on the grid, he only managed to place seventh for the race start.
“They crept in in qualifying where in Q3 he made two major mistakes on his two important laps which meant he only had seventh place on the grid with one of the fastest cars,” Rosberg explained.
Lando Norris, McLaren
Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images
The McLaren driver hit the wall on Turn 7 of his final lap. Add a mistake on the final corner and his Saturday came to an unfortunate end. But it was the Sunday that came to a close sooner than he would have wanted, when he slammed into the rear of his team-mate’s Papaya machinery, damaging his front wing and suspension and forcing a retirement.
“In the heat of the moment, in the most critical moment where he was trying to pass his championship rival he did a very strange misjudgment, just driving right into the back of him,” Rosberg concluded.
The driver was consequently given a five-second penalty for causing the incident, but had already apologised to the team.
“I don’t expect to pass Oscar on the outside into Turn 1,” Norris admitted after the race. “I should never have gone for it, I guess, in complete hindsight.
“I thought he was starting to drift a little bit to the right, so I thought I had a small opportunity to go to the left. But it was way too much risk, especially on my team-mate. So, happy nothing happened to him, and I paid the price for my mistake.”
He now sits 22 points behind Piastri, his main rival of the season. Ballooning from just 10 points prior to the race weekend, the pressure is building on the driver.
