Lando Norris did not complete the Netherlands Grand Prix because of the technical problem. Will the consequences of the Malaysia 2016 Grand Prix will be repeated?
Oscar Piastri came to Zandvoort with a lead of 9 points. Norris was faster on Friday, so he could potentially reduce the loss to just two points. But the qualification won Piastri and shortly before the end of the race it seemed to increase the lead to 16 points. In the end, it is 34 points.
Eight rounds before the end, Norris reported smoke and an unusual odor in the cockpit. A moment later he had to resign. He suspected oil leakage.
Andrea Stella did not want to speculate on the cause of the withdrawal immediately after the race. But later he was a little more shared.
“We found the problem on the side of the chassis (car) and we will perform a complete check before the next race in Monza,” said Stella, quoted by The Race. “This is the first technical problem of the team after a long series of flawless reliability.”
Stella said earlier that it didn’t matter whether it was a engine or a car, because it doesn’t change the result. But it’s not entirely true. In case of problems with the engine, it would be more likely that Norris would have to deploy new components and that at the later stage of the season he would expect penalties.
Already seen Sepangu 2016?
The situation was immediately compared with the Grand Prix of Malaysia 2016. Lewis Hamilton came to Sepang with a loss of 8 points for Nica Rosberg – almost the same as he had before the Norris race. He led in the race, but had to resign due to the engine failure. Rosberg did not win at that time – even because of the penalty, he finished third (the second was, by the way, just like Verstappen yesterday). He left Malaysia with a lead of 23 points.
Foto: Getty Images / Charles Coates
Hamilton no longer managed to catch up. Norris is losing even more, but there are 9 races and sprints left by the end of the season. In 2016, only five Grand Prix took place after Malaysia.
For Norris, it will normally be difficult to catch up, but not impossible. On every weekend, he would have to pull 3.8 points on average, which is playable and has it in his hands. But both riders are very balanced and probably cannot be expected that Piastri will not win any race by the end of the season, or that Norris wins the vast majority of them.
On the other hand, statistics speak against Piastri. Each series of one will end today and the Australian is very long. He has completed 43 races in a row and is only 5 races from Lewis Hamilton record from 2018 to 2020.
