Is F1 title Piastri’s to lose after cruel Norris blow?

This can be a cruel sport at times. F1 can be intense, competitive, exciting and many other things. But sometimes you can just have rotten luck.

It would be a stretch for Lando Norris to suggest that he could have passed his McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri for the win if his car had not failed seven laps before the end of the Dutch Grand Prix. But he was certainly on for 18 points for second place. The championship points gap would have been 16 points with nine races to go.

Instead, it is 34 points and Norris needs Piastri to suffer some bad luck to rebalance that because there is scant prospect of anyone else getting in between them, taking points off the Australian.

It would be wrong to say that this result means that Piastri is going to become the 2025 F1 World Champion. There is still a lot of racing to go.. We still have to visit some places where luck tends to play a part, like Brazil in the rain, the madness of Baku, the Singapore safety cars. But it is fair to say that it looks like it’s out of Norris’ hands now. The odds are stacked in Piastri’s favour and Norris will have to pray that the Australian suffers a reversal like the one he experienced today.

There was utter dejection for Norris, sitting in the sand dunes with his helmet on, his head bowed. He knew the significance of this moment. Piastri, who had demonstrated such control once again; in qualifying, where he edged Norris out by a hundredth of a second and in the race from start to finish, now has control in the championship and edges past the 300 points mark. McLaren team principal Andrea Stella said after the race that he believes this setback will bring out the best in Norris.

But the reality is that Norris would need to beat the Australian in five McLaren 1-2 finishes to get back ahead. The pair were headed for their ninth 1-2 finish as McLaren team-mates today. Norris was the winner in only two of those races.

Something else will have to happen, otherwise it’s over.

F1 cars at Zandvoort look spectacular, the stunning early laps and the restarts looked so intense. On this tight track, the cars look quick and the overtakes need to be aggressive. Full commitment is required. Leclerc’s pass on Russell was tasty. So was Verstappen’s on Norris on the opening lap and the payback on Lap 9; Norris so much more committed here than his effort in Miami. Some contact is inevitable, as we saw when Antonelli made an optimistic dive on the inside of Leclerc, bringing out one of the race’s two Safety cars.

It was ironic then, that the two drivers of the day didn’t have to pass anyone on track. This was a coming-of-age race for Isack Hadjar. The Frenchman is only three years younger than Piastri and commensurately less experienced, but he demonstrated similar levels of control and consistency today as he scooped his first podium in his 15th start in a Racing Bull. He had kept Verstappen in the “A Team” car honest throughout the race; never more than a few seconds ahead.

Memories of Hadjar’s first start, in Melbourne in March, where he made a schoolboy error and ended up in tears, have long receded. He is the rookie of the year without doubt. Ollie Bearman, who has not featured in that conversation all season, had his best F1 result with sixth thanks to some committed strategy calls from Haas, which got him in the game. The American team rode its luck on a day of safety cars and virtual safety cars. There was even some light rain, but not enough to warrant anyone pitting for treaded tyres.

We move on to Monza, where nothing less than a win will do for Norris. He has to grab the initiative, like he did so impressively in the races before the summer break. He will certainly have to ride his luck.