Nico Rosberg ‘baffled’ by ‘three major mistakes’ in Lando Norris’ Singapore victory

Nico Rosberg admitted feeling “baffled” by “three major mistakes” Lando Norris made on his way to victory in Singapore on Sunday, saying the McLaren driver was “quite lucky” to not retire.

Norris took a dominant win from Max Verstappen at Marina Bay, but brushed the wall on two separate occasions in the race, along with out-braking himself while lapping the Williams of Franco Colapinto late on.

Nico Rosberg: Lando Norris had ‘almost race-ending moments’ in Singapore Grand Prix victory

The McLaren driver escaped into the distance from his World Championship rival on Sunday, leading from lights to flag and almost taking his first career Grand Chelem, but for Daniel Ricciardo taking the fastest lap near the end of the race.

But those hair-raising moments, locking up at Turn 14 and almost suffering front wing damage, before brushing the wall by Turn 10 – where George Russell dramatically exited the race last season – left the race leader needing to be on his toes throughout the most physically gruelling event of the year.

When coupled with running deep on the brakes at Turn 16 when passing Colapinto’s Williams, Rosberg thinks these “major mistakes” need to be taken out of his driving if he is to maintain a title challenge to Verstappen in the final six races of the season.

“For me, it kind of baffled me a little bit what was going on there,” Rosberg explained on the Sky F1 podcast.

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“Because he hit the wall twice and both were like really severe, almost race-ending moments where he was quite lucky not to DNF.

“Once, he went miles off the track in a hairpin out-braking [himself] – but really not a small out-braking, like a massive out-braking – and the other time he hit the same wall that George Russell hit last year. where he went crashing out on the last lap of the race last year.

“And what you maybe don’t remember, is he went off the track again when he was passing a backmarker, which was a Williams, he went off the track again.

“So there’s three moments here, and that’s so strange. Like, I can’t remember myself, or a Max Verstappen or whatever, or Lewis [Hamilton], when leading so comfortably with like 30 seconds [advantage] making three major mistakes like that. That was a bit strange.

“I mean, I know Singapore is so hard [for] concentration. Physically, it’s so so tough, but I don’t know what it’s down to.

“But we know that from Lando, that he tends to make those little errors all the time, everywhere. We’ve seen that from him, and he needs to iron that out if he wants to fight for the championship this year.”

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