Lando Norris scolded for taking 'unnecessary risks' at McLaren

McLaren F1 star Lando Norris has been slammed for his 'unnecessary' risk taking during the Singapore Grand Prix.

Norris is currently in the midst of a close championship battle with his McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri, who leads the standings by 22 points with six race weekends remaining.

The pair came together on lap one of the Singapore GP last weekend, with Piastri accusing Norris of 'barging' him out of the way.

FIA race stewards and the McLaren team deemed the move to be legal, and Norris went on to finish in third and Piastri in fourth as McLaren sealed the constructors' championship at the Marina Bay Street Circuit.

Now, however, F1 pundit Peter Windsor has said that Norris' move on his team-mate went too far, and that he took too much of a gamble considering it could've ended up with one or both of the drivers crashing out of the race.

"Oscar just misses the guardrail or the concrete wall on the right in full understeer," Windsor told the CameronCC YouTube channel. "It's one thing to miss it with a bit of oversteer, which you know great drivers with skill as per Oscar Piastri can do. But when you’ve got understeer and you've lost the front, you know that is bad news and very lucky I would say more than anything else that he didn't hit the wall there.

"Why did Lando do that? If he was so desperate to be at the front, why didn't he qualify better? You know, that's the bottom line. It was unnecessary risk taking at that first corner. And there I think under the heading of this massive cliche that's developing around the Singapore Grand Prix of it being impossible to overtake.

"I take issue with that because there is that strong DRS zone in the first sector and we saw Fernando using that and if you get a good run on somebody out of turn three if you got good traction and you're using that section of road well of course you can get a toe there and get past.

"The McLaren was the best car going into Singapore and it remains the best car. Lando qualified poorly, nearly took his team-mate out, damaged the front wing, didn't seem to make much difference. And then in a lame Red Bull with the tyres six laps older, he still couldn't pass Max towards the end, which was amazing, but he wasn't that well, I don't think.

"So all credit to Lando for finishing and getting points I guess, P3, but not a good first corner by Lando Norris and I think he can [give a] big thanks to Oscar Piastri that there wasn't a multi-car shunt there."

Who will win the world championship?

With the constructors' championship now mathematically wrapped up for McLaren, it's thought that the two drivers will be given more space to battle each other hard for the 2025 drivers' championship.

There are six events left in the season, including three sprint races, and Piastri is currently 22 points ahead of Norris in the championship standings, a lead that has been cut at each of the last three grands prix. But there could be another factor in the battle.

And that's four-time world champion Max Verstappen, who is now just 63 points behind Piastri having come either first or second in each of the last four grands prix.

He still has an outside chance of reeling in the two McLaren drivers, and that could become more and more realistic if Piastri and Norris start having more rigorous on-track battles, with Verstappen always there to pick up the pieces should the two McLaren stars rule themselves out of race-winning contention.

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