Formula 1: Norris at the low point: “McLaren-Bang” as a World Cup decision?

Even after the serious crash of the World Cup favorites, Formula 1 leader Oscar Piatri could not be angry with his teammate. “Lando is a really good guy,” said the Australian about the British Norris. After a reinforced apology between the stable rivals, the fact that this was banged into the rear at high speed shortly before the end of the Grand Price of Canada was quickly no longer an issue. Even if there was no question of an escalation in the team duel, it was probably a decisive scene of the season.

“When I make myself a moment in such a moment, I regret it very much. Something like that hurts,” said Norris. A complete misjudgment was the reason why he crashed into the pit wall in a hard -led duel with Piatri on the home stretch. He had tried to come by by all means and failed. While Piatri finished fourth, the 25-year-old paid his uniform maneuver to his pointlessly. “The Brit showed that it is still far from being champion,” wrote the Spanish newspaper “Mundo Deportivo”.

“The error rate is just too high”

Norris’ gap in the World Cup ranking after ten out of 24 races is only 22 points. Psychologically, however, the race output weighed hard. Again, he made a bad mistake in a heated situation, and he had already spagned under pressure in the qualification. “The mistakes keep going, unfortunately,” said ex-world champion Nico Rosberg as a TV expert at Sky: “Piatri is now the favorite. In the new situation, where there is simply so much pressure, he is just strong.” The former Formula 1 driver Timo Glock also agreed: “The error rate is just too high,” he said about Norris.

McLaren announced that the situation that the Swiss newspaper “Blick” described as “McLaren-Bang” was to discuss with everyone involved again. “We use such incidents as soon as some time has passed and we have a cool head, specifically for getting stronger as a team,” said team boss Andrea Stella: “Our two drivers should grow on something like that.” In any case, the accident for the racing team did not come as a surprise. Team boss Zak Brown had already oracelt in April: “I think it’s more of a question when it happens, not whether it happens.”

Piatri: “That was just unhappy”

Norris still took the full guilt in the car on the box radio (“that was stupid of me”) and was then emphasized in every interview. This defused the situation noticeably and is a decisive difference to hard -guided team -internal duels of the past. The mood is by no means poisoned as it was, for example, at Mercedes when Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton fought bitterly for the title.

“I don’t think there was any bad thought. It was just unhappy,” said Piatri. So far, the McLaren pilots have been able to drive freely and also deliver gripping bike-am-wheel duels. However, a limit was exceeded with the accident. “Our top rule is: no contact with the teammate. And that’s exactly what I did,” said Norris. Both hope that there are still no stable orders. “I am very grateful to the team that they allow us to drive against each other,” said Piatri: “I would also not think that this will change.”

Verstappen lurks for more errors behind McLaren

However, the traditional British team cannot risk another incident of this kind, because McLaren lost many points on a generally surprisingly weak weekend. Mercedes driver George Russell, undisclosed, won the victory in front of world champion Max Verstappen and Kimi Antonelli in the second silver arrow made it onto the podium. With twelve points, Piatri ran as fourth only damage limitation and defending champion Verstappen pushed himself closer to the leading duo in the overall ranking.

“For me, this weekend was not good enough. This is not yet comfortable ahead, that’s a long way,” said Piatri with a view to his possible first World Cup title. Above all, McLaren has to fear that in two weeks at the Austria Grand Prix, the Red Bull star will try to get closer. The Dutch is 43 points behind Piatri, but is not thinking of his title number five: “It is a long, long season. So you have to start racing for races.”