Lando Norris insisted that he has ‘come out stronger’ from the most difficult discussions of his career following his brain-fade crash in Montreal.
The British driver shunted into his McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri at 200mph in a blow to his world championship hopes a fortnight ago, slipping 22 points behind the Australian with 10 rounds of the 24-race season completed.
Norris looked rejuvenated in Austria ahead of this weekend’s race on a track he likes. He delivered by far his most composed and thoughtful media session of the year.
He said: ‘I made it clear from the immediate moment that I misjudged it and I took the blame for it.
‘The conversations that followed were not the most joyful by far, but they clearly needed to be had because it is not about just me but about how we perform as a team, and we all know what the No 1 rule was and continues to be (not crashing into a team-mate).
‘So, these were very constructive things from an unfortunate beginning. We have come out stronger, which you might not have expected. A lot has been learned.
Lando Norris insists he has ‘come out stronger’ following difficult discussions after Canada
The Brit shunted into his McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri at 200mph in a huge blow to his world championship hopes – with Norris now sitting 22 points behind the Australian
‘There is a trust and honesty that Oscar and I have for one another. It is important that we keep that going because we don’t want to experience the downfall other teams have had in the past.
‘We want to race fair, hard and on the limit, but we don’t want a repeat of what happened last time. It takes both of us doing what is needed, even though Canada was on me.’
Norris has since travelled to New York for the red-carpet premiere of the F1 movie before returning to Europe ahead of this race in the Spielberg mountains, hit by a hailstorm yesterday, and next week’s home race at Silverstone.
I wish Harry well
Harry Benjamin, newbie 5 Live radio commentator, fancies himself standing in occasionally for David Croft on Sky when their main voice takes a rare race off during an exhaustingly long season.
So I nearly fell out of my bed the other night when Benjamin was asked, as he bounded around the red carpet and bragged of his brush with Brad Pitt, what he made of the new F1 film.
Tony Livesey, an outstanding presenter now on the late shift at the BBC, was perhaps almost as shocked as I was when Benjamin told him: ‘I must be honest, I haven’t seen it.’
Heavens, it was shown to the travelling press pack in Canada earlier this month (and was available elsewhere to media).
So Croft has a major role in the film, and Benjamin hadn’t even watched it. I wish Harry well, but this was not a great look, says this licence-fee payer.
Sky Sports F1’s lead commentator David Croft (middle) has a major role in the new F1 movie
Are you sure about that, Lewis?
Lewis Hamilton has claimed that Brad Pitt’s character Sonny Hayes, who returns from retirement, was modelled on James Hunt.
I’m sorry. The great James died of a heart attack in Wimbledon aged 45 after a marathon snooker session.
In life, he cycled to the Royal Automobile Club to play ferocious squash to county standard. He kept budgerigars at home. He had charm and he had bite. He was a maverick. And he never came back to beat a younger team-mate once he walked out of big-time motor racing for ever. Pitt, meanwhile, is American and 61.
The verdict
The verdict on the F1 movie? I was not the target audience. It was fun enough. It was too long by far. I didn’t buy into Pitt’s cardboard character at all.
The racing action was as well done as conceivable. The love interest was shallow (even by F1’s standards of functionality).
But all that amateur reviewing matters little. The big question, the only one consuming the sport’s money men, is whether it will be a roaring success in cinemas across America? One suspects so. And that would represent job done.
The curious case of George Russell
A thought on the increasingly curious case of George Russell’s delayed contract extension at Mercedes.
Toto Wolff says he is ‘not flirting’ with any other driver, and certainly not Max Verstappen. And Donald Trump is a shrinking violet.
Lewis Hamilton claimed that Brad Pitt’s character Sonny Hayes was modelled on James Hunt
George Russell doesn’t have a race seat for next season, which is strange given his form
Broadcaster Steve Rider has retired aged 75 after presenting his last British Touring Cars event
Broadcasting excellence
Speaking of broadcasting excellence, Steve Rider has retired aged 75 after presenting his last British Touring Cars event.
His unflappable career as Mr Dependable had myriad highs on a broad canvas from Grandstand to the Masters, to big-time boxing, and beyond.
He was perhaps the last of the old-school presenters from an era when BBC Sport meant more to us and to the nation than it does today or ever will again.
Formula One was his favourite of all sports and he was holding the programme together on the day Ayrton Senna died. It was a difficult feat he performed with his usual serenity. Adding to his credit, I never detected a salient ego in the few years we overlapped on the F1 road – and that is an unusual modesty among TV folk, believe me! He was reserved but congenial at the dinner table.
But before this reads like an obituary, one touch of levity.
I asked Des Lynam once, as we conducted a tour d’horizon of the broadcasting scene, what he made of Steve’s professional brilliance. ‘There were two things I hated about him,’ opined the great Des, moustache twitching approvingly. ‘One, he never made a mistake.’ Pause.
‘And, two, he never had a hair out of place.’
