Lando Norris has said he will “chill out and just go for it” in an effort to bridge the gap to his McLaren teammate, Oscar Piastri, after the British driver was forced to retire from the Dutch Grand Prix and the Australian took a 34-point lead in the world championship.
Norris was just nine points behind Piastri going into the 15th round of the season at Zandvoort but an oil leak cost him dear. With seven laps to go when he was in second place and just over one second behind Piastri, Norris was left helpless as his car ground to a halt by the side of the track.
Nine meetings remain this season and Piastri has enough of a lead that catching him will take a herculean effort from Norris, which the British driver acknowledged.
“It’s only made it harder for me and put me under more pressure but it’s almost a big enough gap now that I can just chill out about it and just go for it,” he said. “The only thing I can do is try to win every race. That’s going to be difficult, but I’ll make sure I give it everything I can.”
Piastri dominated from pole in Zandvoort and was unlikely to have been passed by Norris even had he made it to the flag. The British driver conceded that clawing back the points in the fight against his teammate, who now has seven victories this season, would be an immense task.
“It’s just close, I have a good teammate, he’s strong,” Norris said. “He’s quick in every situation, every scenario. It’s hard to get things back on someone who’s just good in pretty much every situation.”
1 Oscar Piastri (Aus) McLaren 1hr 38mins 29.849sec
2 Max Verstappen (Ned) Red Bull +1.271
3 Isack Hadjar (Fr) Racing Bulls +3.233
4 George Russell (GB) Mercedes +5.654
5 Alexander Albon (Tha) Williams +6.327
6 Oliver Bearman (GB) Haas +9.044
7 Lance Stroll (Can) Aston Martin +9.497
8 Fernando Alonso (Sp) Aston Martin +11.709
9 Yuki Tsunoda (Jpn) Red Bull +13.597
10 Esteban Ocon (Fr) Haas +14.063
11 Franco Colapinto (Arg) Alpine +14.511
12 Liam Lawson (NZ) Racing Bulls +17.063
13 Carlos Sainz Jr (Sp) Williams +17.376
14 Nico Hülkenberg (Ger) Sauber +19.725
15 Gabriel Bortoleto (Br) Sauber +21.565
16 Kimi Antonelli (It) Mercedes +22.029
17 Pierre Gasly (Fr) Alpine +23.629
DNF Lando Norris (GB) McLaren, Charles Leclerc (Mon) Ferrari, Lewis Hamilton (GB) Ferrari
Fastest lap: Piastri 1:12.271 on lap 60
Drivers' championship 1 Piastri 309pts, 2 Norris 275, 3 Verstappen (Ned) 205, 4 Russell 184, 5 Leclerc 151, 6 Hamilton 109, 7 Antonelli 64, 8 Albon 64, 9 Hülkenberg 37, 10 Hadjar 37, 11 Stroll 32, 12 Alonso 30, 13 Ocon 28, 14 Gasly 20, 15 Lawson 20, 16 Bearman 16, 17 Sainz Jr 16, 18 Bortoleto 14, 19 Tsunoda 12, 20 Colapinto 0, 21 Doohan 0
Constructors' championship 1 McLaren 584pts, 2 Ferrari 260, 3 Mercedes 248, 4 Red Bull 214, 5 Williams 80, 6 Aston Martin 62, 7 Racing Bulls 60, 8 Sauber 51, 9 Haas F1 44, 10 Alpine 20
Piastri, however, was far from taking anything for granted, despite the advantage. Asked if he thought he could now play the percentages on the run-in to the title he was unequivocal. “No, there’s still a long way to go,” he said.
“I need to keep pushing and trying to win races still. I wouldn’t say it’s a very comfortable margin. As we saw today, it can change with one DNF very, very quickly.”
McLaren have yet to confirm if the oil leak came from the engine or chassis after a very unusual reliability failure in the most recent phase of the turbo-hybrid era – poor fortune which Norris had to accept.
“It’s not like in the olden days when you used to pretty much blow up every other race,” he said. “Then I think it was inevitable. We don’t expect it nowadays. It’s just frustrating, unlucky, and that’s it.”
