All posts tagged: Lando Norris

Lando Norris cruises to Hungarian Grand Prix victory after Piastri forced to retire

Lando Norris cruises to Hungarian Grand Prix victory after Piastri forced to retire

Published by Sam Flores

Lando Norris cashed in on Oscar Piastri’s bizarre collision with a backmarker to win the Hungarian Grand Prix, as Lewis Hamilton lost further ground to Kimi Antonelli in his bid for a record eighth world championship. Norris surrendered the lead to Piastri following a sloppy start from pole position, but he took advantage of his McLaren team-mate tangling with Carlos Sainz – as he attempted to put a lap on the Williams driver midway through the race – to land the first victory of his title defence. Piastri ran off the road after his front-right tyre made contact with the rear-left of Sainz’s Williams, losing him up to two seconds. Norris immediately stopped for tyres and emerged in the net lead. Norris then passed Antonelli on lap 46 before cantering to the chequered flag. Max Verstappen finished second, with Antonelli a place back in third, allowing the Italian teenager to increase his title advantage over Hamilton from 45 points to 50. Hamilton, who will surely be left questioning Ferrari’s strategy after he stopped for tyres …

Lewis Hamilton hit with another penalty in blow to Hungarian GP hopes

Lewis Hamilton hit with another penalty in blow to Hungarian GP hopes

Published by Sam Flores

Over the past two seasons the Red Bull cars have had their issues, but Verstappen has generally been able to drive around them. Enough at least to win the 2024 title and push Norris to a final-round decider in 2025 with a strong finish to the season. In 2026, there has been almost nothing to celebrate and frustration after frustration. There is little hope on offer heading into the summer break at the halfway point of a thoroughly trying season. “For me, the whole qualifying session just went awful. We’ve been losing downforce on the car ever since FP3, and that just kept happening through qualifying, too. It’s just completely rubbish,” Verstappen added. “There’s always something else that stops working or breaks down… I don’t know… I’m just fed up with it for now. “They can see something went wrong again with the aero, that we lost downforce again, the car is just totally undriveable. If you take off wing, you get understeer; if you add wing, it just snaps. It’s simply impossible.” Verstappen was …

George Russell fighting ‘with one hand behind my back’ as Kimi Antonelli takes Belgium GP pole

George Russell fighting ‘with one hand behind my back’ as Kimi Antonelli takes Belgium GP pole

Published by Sam Flores

“But I feel confident head to head, I can achieve it. But when it feels like you’re battling with one hand behind your back, it’s a challenge.” This season, Antonelli has converted 80 per cent of his poles into victories. Russell has four poles, but has only won twice. For Antonelli, this one is another small step on the way to a maiden world championship and represents the latest chapter in a remarkable turnaround following a bruising debut season alongside Russell last year.  Twelve months ago at Spa-Francorchamps, Antonelli put in one of his poorest showings in a troubling passage of the season. In the sprint he qualified last and finished 17th and in the grand prix he ended up 16th, 11 places behind Russell. There are a couple of reasons for Russell to be a little more optimistic. First, he moves up a grid slot because of Norris’s 10-place grid penalty for exceeding the limit of his power unit elements. Secondly, the driver on pole is usually vulnerable to being overtaken on the first …

Lewis Hamilton denied by Kimi Antonelli in British GP sprint race

Lewis Hamilton denied by Kimi Antonelli in British GP sprint race

Published by Sam Flores

Antonelli wasted little time in breaking the one-second gap to Hamilton – in which drivers can deploy “overtake mode” and was able to surge to victory by nearly three seconds, setting the fastest lap on the final lap. “Kimi, well done. Did the fastest lap make you happier at the end?” Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff asked him. “Yeah it made me happier,” came the response. McLaren’s Lando Norris was a distant, albeit encouraging third, ahead of George Russell, who will be increasingly concerned at his inability to match his Mercedes team-mate so far this weekend. The fans at Silverstone will also be a bit deflated at what this result might mean for Sunday’s feature race. “It’s tough race to keep the Mercedes behind,” Hamilton admitted. “I did say that would potentially be the case, and also [there was] a big big headwind down the back straight and he came flying past.  “Once he got the overtake mode I couldn’t hold him back. As soon as that was lost, I knew he was coming.” Qualifying …

Lewis Hamilton tops first British Grand Prix practice

Lewis Hamilton tops first British Grand Prix practice

Published by Sam Flores

“Alonso predicted the weekend could be ‘quite sad’ and Hamilton, bottom lip surely trembling, said, ‘it’s not going to feel the same’ and that he is still angry that he didn’t get enough sweeties. Hamilton is also embroiled in an objectively hilarious row about his participation in a Lego race this weekend in which cars made of 28,000 Lego bricks each drive around the circuit. Very, very slowly.” It is a little bit poor, I have to say. Yes, there is an ever-increasing amount of commitments they have to undertake. But, come on guys, they are just trying to make the painfully dull drivers’ parade a little bit more interesting than drivers being driven around on branded flat-bed trucks and asked the usual questions they are asked before every single race of their lives.  I have more sympathy for the argument about the new regulations neutering the challenge of Silverstone, but I guess a more sympathetic way to look at it would be describing it as challenging in another way. It is not ideal but …

Russell starts title fightback with Barcelona pole as Hamilton qualifies second

Russell starts title fightback with Barcelona pole as Hamilton qualifies second

Published by Sam Flores

George Russell took a morale-boosting pole for Sunday’s Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix and will line up alongside a resurgent Lewis Hamilton on the front row in Spain. Russell, who has had a torrid few weeks in which he has fallen 68 points behind Mercedes team-mate Kimi Antonelli in the title race, told his team it was “nice to feel the groove again” as he returned to the pits. The British driver beat Antonelli by over three-tenths of a second at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya to continue his fine form from practice. Hamilton, who has profited from Russell’s recent struggles to move into second in the championship, very nearly pipped his former Mercedes team-mate to pole. The seven-time world champion was up on Russell’s time midway through his final push lap, but lost time in the final sector to finish 0.064sec behind. Hamilton’s Ferrari team-mate Charles Leclerc suffered a heavy shunt in Q3, bringing out red flags while marshals carried out repairs to the barriers. It follows the Monegasque’s race-ending crash in Monaco last weekend, since when he …

Vasseur ‘under observation’ and Ferrari boss will miss Monaco GP qualifying

Vasseur ‘under observation’ and Ferrari boss will miss Monaco GP qualifying

Published by Sam Flores

Frédéric Vasseur, the Ferrari team principal, will miss qualifying in Monaco on Saturday after being taken unwell. Ferrari drivers Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc are both expected to challenge for pole position, but Vasseur, 58, is being kept “under observation” at a local medical facility in Monaco.  It is unclear whether the Frenchman will be back in time for Sunday’s grand prix. No further medical information was provided by the team, who merely said in a statement on Saturday morning that they wished their boss a “speedy recovery” and looked forward to seeing him back at the track “soon”. Vasseur will miss the most important qualifying session of the season, given how difficult it is to overtake around Monaco’s tight, twisty streets during the actual race.  Moreover, it is a qualifying session for which his team are highly fancied. Hamilton, who is still searching for his first Ferrari win, and Leclerc, a local who has a stellar record at his home race, finished one-two in both practice sessions on Friday. The Monegasque topped the first …

Russell takes last-gasp pole after clashing with Antonelli in Canada sprint

Russell takes last-gasp pole after clashing with Antonelli in Canada sprint

Published by Sam Flores

Antonelli was told to calm down by race engineer Peter “Bono” Bonnington after his outburst over the radio after the first incident. But when he carried on complaining, he earned a rebuke from his team principal Toto Wolff, who told him to “concentrate on the driving”. Then, at the end of the race, after Antonelli went off track a third time trying to pass Norris and was looking to vent his spleen again on the cool-down lap, Wolff shut him down a second time. “Kimi, now is not the time to talk about this. We will talk about this later, not on the radio.” The two Mercedes men had a brief handshake after getting out of their cars, but it promised to be an awkward debrief. Sky Sports F1 pundit Martin Brundle said it was no surprise to see the two come to blows given they are fighting for the title. Russell is under pressure this weekend because Antonelli has won the last three races to take the championship lead. “It was always going to …

Kimi Antonelli claims hat-trick of wins to pile pressure on George Russell

Kimi Antonelli claims hat-trick of wins to pile pressure on George Russell

Published by Sam Flores

Championship leader Kimi Antonelli will start today’s Miami Grand Prix pole. Antonelli only finished sixth in the Sprint earlier on Saturday but delivered a time good enough for pole with his first effort in Q3. Antonelli’s lead at the top of the drivers’ standings was cut to seven points to his teammate George Russell after the Sprint but has the chance to extend his lead today. “It has been an amazing day to be on pole again,” Antonelli said. “It was a difficult start with the Sprint when it did not go our way but super happy with the recovery. I got a bit excited with the last lap in Q3 but the first lap was good enough and I am really happy with that.” Antonelli will be joined on the front row by Max Verstappen, who was the only driver to properly improve with his second and final run in Q3. “It is an incredible turnaround for us,” said Verstappen. “I really did not feel in control of the car up until this weekend. …

Lando Norris takes Miami GP sprint pole to deny Mercedes for first time in 2026

Lando Norris takes Miami GP sprint pole to deny Mercedes for first time in 2026

Published by Sam Flores

It has been a long time, hasn’t it? With the cancellation of the Bahrain and Saudi Arabian races, F1 has had an enforced and unexpected spring break after just three rounds of the new regulation set. But here we are, back in Miami for a sprint weekend, with some tweaks to the regulations. Without going into too much detail – and the new regulations are so detailed that it beggars belief – there will, of course, be hope that the tweaks make for better, more sensible racing as well as bringing some of the challengers close to leaders Mercedes. Hard to say if that has happened on the basis of one (albeit extended) practice session in Miami, but there were some fairly promising signs. Charles Leclerc was fastest for Ferrari ahead of Max Verstappen in the Red Bull, nearly 0.3sec behind, followed by Oscar Piastri, Ferrari team-mate Lewis Hamilton and then the lead Mercedes of Kimi Antonelli. George Russell, who is hoping to overturn the Italian’s championship advantage this weekend, was sixth, only marginally behind …