Title will come down to fewest mistakes

BBC News

a day ago

Lando Norris says the Formula 1 world title will be decided this year by which contender makes the fewest mistakes.Norris trails McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri by 16 points heading into this weekend's Hungarian Grand Prix, following Piastri's win in Belgium last weekend.Norris said: "It's just who qualifies first and second more often. And you kind of just hold on in Turn One and then go from there. There's not been many races where positions have swapped through a race."So therefore it's more who can make the least mistakes when they qualify first."Norris, who has won four races to Piastri's six so far this season, was on pole in Spa last weekend but was overtaken by Piastri on the first lap.The Briton acknowledged there were "certain things" he could have done better in Belgium, but insisted "nothing which means I could have won the race".Norris said: "I don't feel like I did a bad job. I didn't have the best run but at the same time we had some, not problems, some incorrect settings with the battery. Which meant he had a slight advantage of battery compared to me, which certainly didn't help. But I also didn't do the best (first) two corners."Whether that would have made a difference or not, hard to say. With the issue, he probably would have passed me no matter what. So yeah, a tougher one to take from that perspective."
Norris also pointed to a slow pit stop and a lock-up in Turn One while he was trying to chase Piastri down and which cost him a total of four seconds of race time when he lost by less than that.Norris has acknowledged already this season that he made too many mistakes in qualifying in the early part of the season, when Piastri went on a run of four wins in five races.And he said he had adjusted his approach from always pushing to the limit to give himself a little more margin for error."Sometimes this year, even 95% would have been fine," Norris said."These are some of my mistakes from earlier on in the season. I mean, I tried before at 101%. Sometimes that's amazing. Sometimes that's, I think, as good as you can get."I do believe that. But also at times I should drive at 95% or even 90% and that's not enough to be on pole or P2 sometimes."So yeah, I regret trying to... I mean, I do regret trying to be so good at the beginning part of the season. And I think now already I sometimes settle for a 95% lap and that's still good enough."Piastri said: "I have a lot of confidence in myself that I can do it. Not every weekend has been perfect, but there's not many weekends in my whole life that have been perfect."Just trying to put together a solid, consistent year is ultimately going to be important."The pace in the last few weekends, especially Spa, I've been very confident in and very proud of."I'm more than capable of continuing that for the rest of the year. I'm confident that I can do it, but it's not going to be easy."
Red Bull's Max Verstappen is 81 points behind Piastri - more than three clear wins. And Norris said that while it was "never impossible", the Dutchman was "quite a long way back".He added: Max is still quite easily one of the best drivers ever in Formula 1. So as a driver, I wouldn't rule him out."But we have a better car, we have a better team. So I have my confidence in them that we can stay ahead."Mercedes driver George Russell said: "Oscar's been very solid. I think he gets the most out of himself every single weekend, is my takeaway, he's very consistent, doesn't get flustered, and just delivers reliably."Whereas I feel Lando's got huge raw speed, but probably the hit rate isn't as high as Oscar's."But they're two incredible drivers, and I think they'll continue fighting for quite a while. But Oscar doesn't seem very phased."Russell also pointed to a penalty Piastri received for braking behind the safety car at the British Grand Prix, which cost him the win to Norris."It swings so quickly, doesn't it? The momentum shifts so quickly," Russell said. "But I think Oscar was a bit unfortunate in Silverstone. He could have also won the race in Austria, it could have gone very differently."Lando, over the last three years, has beaten Oscar over that period, so you can't count out either of them, but I think it's definitely fair to say Oscar's sort of stepped up this year."