Today at 09:15
Former F1 driver Johnny Herbert has claimed that Lando Norris has
learnt to dump some of his mental "baggage", as the McLaren
"pressure cooker" heats up in the drivers' title. It looks
increasingly likely to be an all-McLaren fight for the championship
this season between Oscar Piastri and Norris, who are separated by
just eight points. Both drivers have made mistakes in recent
races, something Herbert puts down to the increasing pressure of
having a real chance of a maiden F1 title. Norris has made several
errors this season but his biggest was crashing into Piastri in the
Canadian Grand Prix; however, he has bounced back perfectly. Since
crashing into his team-mate, Norris has won back-to-back races,
whilst Piastri, ultimately, lost a win in Silverstone due to
'erratic braking' behind the safety car. Piastri received a
10-second time penalty, handing victory to his team-mate. For the
first time this season, the Australian showed anger and frustration
on camera. In Herbert's eyes, everything that has happened is part
of fighting for a title for the first time. Asked in a
RacingNews365 interview for his biggest takeaway of the season so
far, Herbert replied: "I suppose it's probably watching the growth
of both the McLaren drivers. Oscar is always, you know, he's the
Mr. Cool character. "He doesn't really show any cracks in his
armoury, although those cracks did show a little bit after his
penalty in Silverstone. "It's the first time we've seen a little
bit of emotion, frustration, coming out of him. That's all going to
be part of this pressure cooker that is going to be building up for
Oscar and for Lando as well. "And Lando is probably maturing still,
he's probably a slower maturer than, let's say, Oscar, but I think
he's maturing very, very quickly. He's learning all the elements
that he needs to to apply to his skill set." Norris dumping
'baggage' For Norris, his biggest weakness this year has been
dealing with the mental pressure of fighting for the championship.
In the opening rounds, the Briton was publicly self-critical of his
errors, something which was questioned by the media as the
incorrect approach. Interestingly, since the Montreal incident,
Norris has been more positive and less harsh on himself, indicating
to Herbert that the 25-year-old is learning to "absorb" the
pressure. Herbert continued: "I think that's the one thing I always
think as a racing driver, it's your capacity in your head to be
able to absorb all the goings on within the bubble of F1.
"Everything that happens within your team, everything that happens
when you get yourself in the cockpit and the chitter chatter you
have with your engineer. "And then with the racing, with wheel to
wheel racing, either with your team-mate or Max [Verstappen] or
George [Russell] or whoever it may be. "And I think that's where
Lando, I think, is learning that he needs to properly dump some of
the baggage that he has, which then think gives him more space and
more capacity to absorb all the pressure that's thrown at him. And
you know, he did a good job at Silverstone."
