Former F1 driver Jolyon Palmer has stated \u201csomething has changed\u201d with Lando Norris this year amid his pursuit of his maiden title.<\/p>\n
Norris entered the campaign as the favourite for the drivers’ championship following McLaren’s strong end to the 2024 season, which was capped off with a constructors’ championship.<\/p>\n
Norris held the lead of the standings through the opening races of the current season before team-mate Oscar Piastri took over the top spot following his third win of the season in Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n
Piastri’s lead has since grown to 22 points, with the gap aided by Norris’ non-finish last time out in Canada after he collided with Piastri late on.<\/p>\n
Palmer pointed to various mistakes Norris has made this year and voiced alarm over how the errors contrast with the rest of his career.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe whole time, he has been, in my mind, an exceptionally quick driver,\u201d Palmer told the F1 Nation podcast.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis qualifying pace, I put right up there with anyone and he actually hasn’t made many mistakes in his career.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis year, it feels like something has changed. One thing that’s changed is that he was the championship favourite coming into the season, he now has the best car.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s nowhere to hide when you\u2019re the in-form driver coming into the year, you have the best car. The other 19 drivers are really looking at you and thinking, this is yours to lose.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs the season is going on, I’m seeing a Lando that I’ve not seen before, which is someone that’s just making a lot of mistakes under pressure.\u201d<\/p>\n
Norris’ clash with Piastri marked the first time the two title contenders made contact this year.<\/p>\n
The former took immediate blame for the incident, an approach hailed by McLaren team boss Andrea Stella.<\/p>\n
With the title battle ramping up, Palmer suggested the pressure on Norris’ shoulders is resulting in his costly mistakes.<\/p>\n
\u201cF1 is all about pressure,\u201d he said. \u201cAs a rookie, you come in and there’s pressure. There’s nowhere to hide in any race.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s won races before. Abu Dhabi [2024] was pressure with a constructors\u2019 championship on the line.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cBut the Q3 [mistakes], two that he made in Canada and then the misjudgment with Oscar, for me, it was just a pressure thing.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a complete misjudgment that I think must be from the pressure that he’s probably added on himself at that moment<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s heaping the pressure on even if other people aren’t, which generally they are. So it becomes this difficult situation for him.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former F1 driver Jolyon Palmer has stated \u201csomething has changed\u201d with Lando Norris this year amid his pursuit…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":166999,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4103],"tags":[859,4199,1076,1074,1077,1075,997,707,4200,998,1073,1072,1071,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-213113","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-f1","8":"tag-daniel-ricciardo","9":"tag-f1","10":"tag-f1-calendar","11":"tag-f1-live","12":"tag-f1-results","13":"tag-f1-standings","14":"tag-ferrari","15":"tag-formula-1","16":"tag-formula1","17":"tag-lewis-hamilton","18":"tag-max-verstappen","19":"tag-motorsport","20":"tag-racing","21":"tag-sports","22":"tag-uk","23":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114743991592809916","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213113"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213113\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/166999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}