Nico Rosberg believes Lando Norris still makes too many mistakes, both at the start and during races. The 2016 world champion was surprised to see the number of missteps the McLaren F1 driver made during the Singapore race, even though he understands the pressure is intense.
“I think when everyone keeps saying ‘Lando, seven times you started on pole, and seven times you came out of the first lap not being first, what are you doing wrong and are you worried about doing it again tomorrow?’, it ends up adding a lot of pressure.” Rosberg said on Sky Sports’ F1 podcast.
“Because you really start to wonder if you can make a good start and if you’re going to mess it up again. It adds a lot of pressure. I think he was under pressure, especially at the start. Once again, he rose to the occasion.”
“Where things got really strange was the mistakes he made during the race. I was a bit taken aback by what happened because he hit the wall twice. Both times were very serious, almost race-ending moments and he was lucky not to be eliminated.”
“Once he went off track by several kilometres in a hairpin, not a small exit but a massive exit, and the other time he hit the same wall as George Russell last year when he went off track on the last lap. He went off track again when he overtook a competitor, which was the Williams, and he went off track again. So there were three moments.”
“I don’t remember myself, or a Max Verstappen, or a Lewis [Hamilton]when they were leading so comfortably, we made three major mistakes. It was a bit strange. I know Singapore is very difficult, to concentrate, physically it was very difficult.”
“I don’t know what it is. But we know from Lando that he tends to make these little mistakes all the time, everywhere. We’ve seen it, and he has to correct that if he wants to fight for the championship this year.”
Despite this, Rosberg is convinced that Norris can still challenge Verstappen for the title: “More than the victory, it’s the performance and the speed that count. That will scare Red Bull, because with this speed until the end of the year, it’s realistic to think that Lando can really win all the remaining races.”
“For Max it’s difficult to finish second it seems. So the world championship is still going on. It’s almost impossible for Max to finish second all the time because of Oscar’s presence [Piastri]. Also, Oscar has done a very good job in general. He’s going to take points from Max. So that’s a big problem.”
“And Max is not going to be happy that F1 has introduced all these sprint races because those three times eight points… that’s a lot of points. It’s huge. With the way his car is working, it adds a lot of pressure on Max. I really think it could go down to the wire, which is incredibly exciting.”
