Lando Norris is the more experienced of the two McLaren drivers, having been with the team since 2019 — four years before Oscar Piastri made his F1 debut. When McLaren finally delivered a competitive car, many believed Norris would be the one to capitalize and challenge for the championship. But now that the opportunity has arrived, it’s Piastri who seems to be the quicker driver.
Something needs to change for Norris, who has admitted that he tends to put himself under too much pressure, leading to costly mistakes. Five rounds into the season, he finds himself trailing Piastri — who has already won three Grands Prix — by 10 points.
It’s still early days, so a comeback isn’t out of the question. To do that, though, Norris might need to take inspiration from Nico Rosberg’s title-winning campaign against Lewis Hamilton in 2016. At least, that’s the advice from F1 journalist Tom Clarkson.
Norris is currently locked in an intra-team battle for the crown, and if there’s one such rivalry in F1 history that stands out for its intensity, it’s Rosberg vs. Hamilton.
The two former best friends became teammates at Mercedes in 2013. But F1’s competitive nature turned them against each other, with fierce on-track battles ensuing. After a quiet 2013 season, Mercedes became the undisputed fastest team the following year, and Hamilton won two back-to-back championships — leaving Rosberg needing to do something extraordinary to turn the fortunes around.
On the F1 Nation podcast, Clarkson said, “Nico Rosberg, who was brilliantly fast, particularly over one lap, but up against Lewis Hamilton in the same car, he wasn’t as quick. And he had to change something in order to win the world championship.”
Rosberg did just that. After losing to the Briton in 2015, he decided to ‘mess with his teammate’s head’ to get the better of him.
In a 2017 interview, the German driver revealed that he had intentionally lost muscle mass in his leg to throw Hamilton off. He gave up cycling — one of his favorite activities — which helped him shed a kilo of body weight. “One kilo of body weight is 0.04 of a second per lap when the car is at the weight limit. I was on pole at Suzuka by 0.03 seconds,” Rosberg said, before pointing out that he went on to win that race, while Hamilton finished third.
Lewis Hamilton throws cap at Nico Rosberg; Rosberg does not take it at all well: https://t.co/nCqx2S0lLl pic.twitter.com/1OyRbiNxm8
— Cycling on TNT Sports (@cyclingontnt) October 25, 2015
Clarkson didn’t refer to this particular incident, but suggested Norris to learn from the ex-Mercedes driver.
“He [Rosberg] changed his mindset to much more of a sort of battle-hardened war mentality that got under Lewis Hamilton’s skin, and it has been well documented now… that is what won him the championship.”
“I wonder whether Norris gonna have to have that watershed moment himself…,” Clarkson added.
For now, Norris continues to struggle mentally — a front where Piastri is clearly ahead. Unless that changes, there’s no version of Rosberg’s approach that the Briston-born driver can realistically implement to come out on top in this battle.
It’s also worth noting that Rosberg gave everything he had to beat Hamilton in 2016. The sacrifices he made affected his personal life and took such a mental toll that, after achieving his dream of becoming a world champion, he chose to retire from F1 altogether. That’s not a path Norris would be keen to follow.
