Lando Norris might have crossed the finish line 20 seconds ahead of Max Verstappen in Singapore, but his win was far from flawless, according to former F1 champion Nico Rosberg. The McLaren driver’s victory could have easily turned into a disaster, with multiple near-catastrophic errors threatening to end his race prematurely.
Norris first hit the wall, damaging his front wing, and later clipped the barriers with his rear right tire in a move eerily reminiscent of George Russell’s costly crash in the same race a year prior. He even went off track while navigating around back-markers, surviving a series of incidents that could have spelled disaster.
Rosberg, speaking on the Sky Sports F1 Podcast, was baffled by the mistakes from a driver who was leading unchallenged, saying: “It kind of baffled me a little bit what was going on there because he hit the wall twice… Both were really severe, almost race-ending moments where he was quite lucky not to DNF.”
Rosberg pointed out that champions like himself, Lewis Hamilton, and Max Verstappen simply don’t make such errors when in comfortable leads. “I can’t remember myself or a Max Verstappen or Lewis, when leading so comfortably with 30 seconds, making three major mistakes like that.”
While Norris has been touted as a future F1 champion and the only driver capable of challenging Verstappen in 2024, Rosberg warned that these kinds of mistakes need to be addressed. “We know that Lando tends to make those little errors all the time everywhere. We’ve seen that from him, and he needs to iron that out if he wants to fight for the championship this year,” Rosberg concluded.
With F1 championship ambitions in sight, Norris must eliminate these costly mistakes if he’s to take on Verstappen and claim the ultimate prize in 2024.
