Lando Norris under scrutiny as Schumacher claims ‘internal’ McLaren decision made

Oscar Piastri is “the man” that McLaren have decided to focus on for the F1 2025 title, with Lando Norris showing “too many weaknesses” and making “mistakes.”

That’s according to former F1 driver Ralf Schumacher.

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The McLaren team-mates went into the F1 2025 season on equal footing, McLaren chiefs Zak Brown and Andrea Stella adamant there’d be no favouritism while both are in the fight for the World title.

The team-mates were given free rein to race one another in accordance with McLaren’s papaya rules, which Brown explained last season simply mean “race him hard, race him clean, don’t touch.”

Norris broke that rule at the Canadian Grand Prix when he drove into the back of his team-mate’s MCL39, clipping the rear tyre as they battled over fourth place down the main straight.

That sent Norris slamming into the outside of the pit wall, the Briton immediately retiring from the race while Piastri made a precautionary pit stop behind the Safety Car. He held on to fourth place and extended his lead in the Drivers’ Championship from 1o to 22 points over his team-mate.

Schumacher reckons that was it for Norris’ championship hopes.

“I believe that it is now internally decided that Piastri is the man the team will focus on in terms of the World Championship,” the six-time race winner declared to Sky Deutschland.

“Lando shows too many weaknesses and makes too many mistakes, including his senseless driving into the back of Oscar in Canada.”

McLaren team-mates: F1 2025 head-to-head stats

? F1 2025: Head-to-head qualifying statistics between team-mates

? F1 2025: Head-to-head race statistics between team-mates

The German did applaud Norris for immediately admitting responsibility and apologising to his team-mate and McLaren as a whole.

“He has apologised and that shows what a great person he is,” said Schumacher.

“But it’s no use, because great people rarely win titles.”

Norris was on the back foot in Canada after a mistake in qualifying, not his first Q3 error of the season, left him P7 on the grid.

He made up positions in the race and was seemed to have the better pace of the two McLarens in the grand prix.

However, between his qualifying error and his race crash, it was another weekend in which pundits are speaking about Norris’ mental ability.

“This is the low point now because he has lost his nerve a bit,” Schumacher said.

“You have to give him one thing, he was once again faster than Piastri. He didn’t manage to do it in qualifying, but in the race he closed the gap and was simply better. He still has the speed, especially in the race. Norris has this sensitivity when it comes to the stress on the tyres.

“In [Alain] Prost’s time, one would have said ‘professor’. The only problem is in Lando’s head.”

Piastri holds a 6-4 advantage over Norris in both qualifying and the Grands Prix, while sitting 22 up on his team-mate in the Drivers’ standings.

The fight is by no means over, although Martin Brundle says Norris has to cut out his bad weekends if he wants to beat his team-mate to the title.

“Lando won’t win a World Championship unless he can stop these weekends happening. It’s as simple as that,” Brundle told Sky F1.

“He’s got to bring his A-game pretty much all the time, like Max [Verstappen] does. Oscar’s much more solid in his delivery week in, week out, much more consistent.

“I find it really confusing, those two different levels of performance. He needs to park one and deliver the other one more often, but there’s a long way to go.

“It doesn’t mean he’s out of the championship at all. But when you look at the turnaround in points from the advantage he came away from Melbourne with, to what he’s got now, it’s a 45-point swing in that time.”

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