Lando Norris’s world championship dream ran into a wall in Montreal, a 200mph collision with his McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri the latest example of a fragility that is growing painful to watch.
The smash came on lap 67 of 70 on the start-finish straight in a Canadian Grand Prix won by a serene George Russell. The colliding pair were duelling for fourth place. One had pushed a wheel ahead, then the other. Next, Norris thought he saw a chance that didn’t exist to get ahead and stay there.
He tried to thread his orange car through the inside of Piastri’s but instead made contact with the left rear of the Australian’s machine and was sent along the wall right next to him on his left. Part of his McLaren burst off and a grey plume of calamity flew into the air.
Norris’s front left tyre was hanging off as the car stopped on the grass verge. There were echoes of another McLaren pair, Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton, colliding at an almost identical spot in the wet in 2011. Blame that day was shared around. This one was all down to Norris.
‘Are you all right, dude?’ asked Will Joseph, his race engineer.
‘Yep, I’m sorry,’ replied Norris. ‘It’s all my bad. All my fault. Unlucky, sorry. Stupid from me.’
George Russell has won Mercedes' first race of the season beating Max Verstappen in Canada
The British driver secured victory for the German side in Montreal with his team-mate Kimi Antonelli in third
Lando Norris crashed out with only a few laps to go after trying to overtake Oscar Piastri
Perhaps we should admire this instant mea culpa after slitting his dreams by his own hand so often over the past few months. It is honourable in so much as it is hard to think of another driver who would so readily concede liability. Or does it tell us something different?
Whatever, it renders his title hopes broken, at least for now – 22 points behind Piastri, who went on to finish fourth despite suffering damage of his own. The Briton had started the day 10 points off the lead, and starting seventh to Piastri’s third.
The two men met in the TV pen afterwards and hugged. One was sorry, the other knowing he had taken a massive stride in their wider battle for year-long immortality.
‘Rule number one is to not make contact with your teammate, and that’s what I did,’ said a contrite Norris.
‘McLaren is my family and I race for them every single weekend and try and do well for them on and off the track, and do well for myself. So when I let them down like this and make a fool of myself like this, I have a lot of regret. I’m not proud of myself. I feel bad. Apologies to all the team.’
McLaren chief executive Zak Brown had forecast a collision between his pair in the fastest car at the top stage of the standings at some stage.
Protocols are, therefore, in place to deal with the fallout, and have been for the last few months. But whatever is in the rebuilding manual, Norris has surely got work to do to turn the team his way. Can they really believe in him again?
Does he believe in himself, indeed? On Saturday he messed up in qualifying, a few silly but wounding mistakes, then this.
Russell's win, his first since Las Vegas in November, takes him to within 62 points of Piastri
Antonelli (right) took P3 - his first podium in Formula One - to complete a strong afternoon for Mercedes
No matter that he had performed well to that point. He often drives with great style and speed, but in close combat loses his head, too often taking the wrong option in trying to overtaken. Usually, he goes on the outside, wrongly, and then, ironically, this time he went on the inside.
Anyway, Norris thankfully walked out of the cockpit unharmed for the long trek back to the garage, his helmet camouflaging his disappointment. Father Adam, who was here, grimaced and shook his head. Team principal Andrea Stella sipped from a water bottle, agitatedly. Now Stella and Brown must try to mend the debris of this huge setback.
The race ended behind a safety car with Max Verstappen second and Kimi Antonelli third.
As for Russell, ker-ching! If I were him, I’d demand an extra five million pounds a year from Mercedes after this latest display exceeding brilliance.
If I were Mercedes, I’d pay it.
He did not clash with rival Verstappen at the start as many had predicted, hoped for, or feared. He was too good for that.
Contract negotiations are moving at a snail’s pace despite his existing deal expiring at the end of this season. Whatever team principal Toto Wolff might say, it feels as though he is waiting to see whether Verstappen wants out from Red Bull before turning to Russell.
If one of the Silver Arrows has to make way, it should be the highly rated, one-day-may-be-a-total star Antonelli, whose first career podium this was, aged 18.
Piastri put greater distance between himself and Norris after his team-mate crashed out
Lewis Hamilton endured another poor afternoon after he sustained damage to his Ferrari
Champagne and lobster sandwiches were served in the Mercedes motorhome after their double joy (subject to an appeal lodged by Red Bull into Russell’s allegedly erratic driving under the safety car brought about by Norris’s accident).
Russell set up his triumph – the fourth of his career spent at a previously moribund Mercedes and before that at deadbeat Williams – on Saturday. It was a brilliant pole lap, too, produced, from almost nowhere and clean out of the warm St Lawrence Seaway air. He called it his ‘most exhilarating’ qualifying lap, one that gave him ‘goosebumps’ – a massive margin of 0.160sec ahead of Verstappen.
For the rest of us, it set up the prospect of the two enemies side by side. They lined up on the pre-race grid. The clean-shaven Russell was in black shades and his silver ice jacket that makes him look like an astronaut. Verstappen, stubbled, was opposite him. Neither betrayed any emotion bar their usual pre-race intensity.
It was hot out there, the sun fierce and that was not what Russell’s Mercedes and its engineering required. Or so it was predicted.
Russell was away like the rocket man he had looked moments earlier, his reactions six-thousandths of a second faster and that was towards his first win since Las Vegas last year.
The drama was clearly elsewhere. A final thought. Russell is now 62 points behind Piastri. Is he out of the title picture with 14 races left?
