Lando Norris reveals he is the sole source of blame for the crash with Oscar Piastri at the 2025 Canadian GP as he suffered his first retirement of the season and saw the gap to his title competitor grow, who went on to finish fourth.
After pursuing a strategic tyre offset to recover from seventh on the grid at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, the Brit had a lot of pace in his bid to reign in his McLaren colleague on June 15.
And as he closed up to the back of the lead papaya-coloured car, he began to size up his 24-year-old teammate as he tried to get a gauge of where he might be faster and where he could set up an overtake.
The on Lap 66 he finally went for a big lunge into Turn 10 that the Australian read like a book and flawlessly executed a switchback to defend, leaving them in a drag race down the backstraight.
The championship leader managed to hold the inside line and stayed ahead as the 25-year-old looked to take the better line through the chicane to find a move into Turn 1 with DRS, but disaster struck.
As Norris looked to the inside, he had gone for a gap that was never there and ran into the back of Piastri, and he reveals it was all his fault as he takes the full blame for the crash at the 2025 Canadian GP.
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“No one to blame but myself,” Norris told Sky Sports F1. “So, I apologise to the whole team and to Oscar as well for attempting something probably a bit too silly.
“Glad I didn’t ruin his race. In the end apologies to the team.”
McLaren’s senior driver, who made his debut back in 2019, warned that this moment might be coming all season as, despite battling for the titles, the pair have rarely gone wheel-to-wheel.
And now that moment finally arrived, although Norris admits it wasn’t even a racing incident he simply was not switched on and made a careless error that ruined his own afternoon.
“This was just more silly,” Norris added. “This wasn’t even like a ‘that’s racing’, it was just silly from my part.”
Norris championship bid takes blow after Canadian GP crash with Piastri
In his quest for a maiden Formula 1 title, the man from Bristol saw his DNF take him further away from contention as his teammate managed to survive the incident and went on to finish fourth.
Piastri bags an extra 12 points and opens his advantage at the summit of the drivers’ standings to 22 points over Norris, almost a race win clear, ahead of the upcoming Austrian Grand Prix.
Meanwhile McLaren saw their lead over Mercedes drop as George Russell won with Kimi Antonelli third for the Silver Arrows, although it still stands at a very health margin of 175 points through 10 races.
