Juan Pablo Montoya believes Lando Norris is “too emotional” in the heat of battle as the McLaren star fights with his teammate Oscar Piastri for the F1 world championship.
Norris cost himself 10 points in the title race after he crashed out of Sunday’s Canadian Grand Prix, taking full blame for colliding with Piastri with just a few laps left of the race.
The gap at the top of the standings is now 22 points, with Norris having won just two out of 10 races this season. The Briton has also admitted numerous mistakes in qualifying, which have cost him higher starting spots on the grid.
Montoya, who raced in F1 for Williams and McLaren from 2001-2006 and won seven races, believes Norris was “unnecessarily impatient” in his move on Piastri in Montreal.
“Lando is just way too emotional,” Montoya said. “I really like him, I feel for him because of the way his emotions are, each time he’s putting himself in a harder situation.
“He’s very calm all weekend and executes all weekend. And then he gets to that last Q3 and something clicks in his head and he thinks ‘ now I cannot screw up.’ And you know, when you think about not screwing up… is when you normally screw up.
“Even if Oscar had given him a bit of room and he put the tyres on the grass, he was going to come out backwards out of that deal. So even if he didn’t hit Oscar, that wouldn’t work. It is unnecessarily impatient.”
Montoya added that he believes Norris should have received at least one penalty point for the incident, given Max Verstappen received three penalty points for his collision with George Russell at the Spanish GP earlier this month.
“People were saying that Lando got a penalty for the incident, but didn’t get any points on his license… why?” Montoya added, in association with Casino Hawks. “If you’re giving somebody a five-second penalty for reckless driving and causing an incident, did he not get at least a point on his license?
“That’s what Max always complains about, which is why he also talks about where someone’s passport is from.
“Do you have levels where you can get a penalty without points? Normally, everybody who does something stupid gets points on his license.
“What Lando did was really stupid. He created a collision. You either penalise him or you don’t.”
Norris will be looking to bounce back at the next race in Austria (27-29 June).
