Norris to 'go for it' after Zandvoort title blow

Lando Norris has won five races this season but retired from two grands prix

Lando Norris says his retirement from the Dutch Grand Prix was a blow in his attempt to win the world championship - but insists he will "go for it" as he tries to recover his season.

The Briton has fallen 34 points behind McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri with nine races remaining after the Australian won in Zandvoort while Norris retired with an oil leak.

There are still a maximum of 225 points available, but the gap is well over the 25 points for a race victory.

"It's only made it harder for me and put me under more pressure. But it's almost a big enough gap now that I can just chill out about it and just go for it," Norris said.

"The only thing I can do is try to win every race. That's going to be difficult, but I'll make sure I give it everything I can.

"Tough one. Of course it's frustrating. It hurts a bit, it hurts for sure, in a championship point of view.

"It's a lot of points to lose so quickly and so easily. There's nothing I can control now, so I'll just take it on the chin and move on."

Norris had arrived in the Netherlands after Formula 1's summer break just nine points behind Piastri after three wins in the previous four races.

But despite looking the quicker McLaren driver all weekend, Norris was beaten to pole position by Piastri, by just 0.012 seconds.

That allowed Piastri to control the race on a track where overtaking is notoriously difficult. Despite three safety cars and a series of incidents up and down the field, and constant pressure from Norris, Piastri's victory never looked in doubt.

Norris sat beside the track with his head in his hands after his retirement with seven laps to go, but had the incident in perspective by the time he spoke to the media.

"Just want to go have a burger and go home," he said.

"I was quick today. It is impossible to overtake here. A good race today. I was happy I could stay within 1.5/2 seconds.

"It was a positive race but it didn't mean anything. I couldn't get past. Oscar deserved it today. Just not my weekend."

Norris took solace from the fact that he was able to follow within a couple of seconds of his team-mate all race, which he took as proof that he was quicker.

But Piastri countered by saying he was going only as fast as he needed to and felt he had the pace to extend his gap when he wanted.

In essence, the race distilled the closeness of the battle between the two men this year, as well as the superiority of the McLaren car over the rest of field - they both pulled well clear of world champion Max Verstappen's Red Bull once Norris had repassed the Dutchman early in the race.

'Not a comfortable gap' - Piastri

Lando Norris joined the McLaren celebrations for Oscar Piastri's victory at Zandvoort

Piastri has been the model of solidity and consistency this season, and has made barely any mistakes since a spin in the opening race of the season left him with a ninth-place finish while Norris won.

Norris said: "It's hard to get things back on someone who's good in pretty much every situation.

"Just have to keep fighting, keep doing what I can."

Piastri rejected any thought that he now had a decisive advantage for the remaining nine races, with the Italian Grand Prix to follow next weekend, before eight long-haul races across the globe to finish the season.

"There's still a long way to go," the 24-year-old said. "I need to keep pushing and trying to win races still. I wouldn't say it's a very comfortable margin.

"As we saw today, it can change with one DNF very, very quickly. So, this far out from the end of the year, it's not a comfortable gap."

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella said he was convinced Norris was still in the title fight.

"100% absolutely no doubt and absolutely no hesitation," Stella said. "If possible, we will see even the best of Lando as he tries to recover the points he missed.

"Lando is one of the most fair, balanced, in a way I would almost say trustworthy individual, before being so as a driver.

"So when he says he's going to be full commitment or whatever he said, it just means that if anything, he will try to extract out of himself even more from his incredible potential.

"I look forward to seeing what Lando will be in condition to express because we know that his talent is immense.

"And I'm sure this situation in the championship will give him extra motivation to try and extract it."

Norris comeback 'not impossible'

Oscar Piastri held the lead throughout the Dutch Grand Prix

Both Stella and Mercedes F1 boss Toto Wolff initially said it was not yet clear whether the oil leak was caused by a chassis or engine problem.

But late on Sunday Stella said in the team's press release that they had "identified an issue on the chassis side".

The Italian added: "We will do a full review before we go racing again in Monza. This is the first technical problem for the team after a long run of faultless reliability."

Stella also praised Piastri for the calm way he had built towards pole and victory after being a step behind Norris throughout the practice sessions.

"I would say that Oscar's weekend has been a characteristic weekend for Oscar because we have seen the characteristic of building up through the weekend in practice, cashing in the learning," Stella said.

"We have seen the delivery at the moment that counts, which is qualifying.

"And then we have seen that when it comes to race, he is characteristically quite comfortable, keeps the situations under control, pretty sharp in execution. And while he does so, he remains always calm and lucid.

"So this is one of the, let me say, Oscar-like weekends. It proves his maturity and the level of his race-craft as a Formula 1 driver."

Norris' situation is reminiscent of the one that faced Lewis Hamilton when he was trying to recover a gap to Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg in 2016.

Hamilton was behind Rosberg in the championship as a consequence of a series of reliability problems. He was poised to reclaim the lead with a dominant victory in Malaysia towards the end of the year, only for his engine to fail.

That left Hamilton needing to close a 23-point gap to Rosberg in the final five races.

The German put himself in a strong position with a win in Japan the following weekend, and Hamilton fell just short despite winning the final four races in a row.

Wolff said on Sunday that the Malaysia retirement had created strains in his relationship with Hamilton.

"Super difficult," Wolff said. "Because you're letting a driver down. Now, you could say maybe it's a long season and that was a single incident. But Lewis is doing the job, he's leading the race, he's creating a big gap in the championship and then he would blow an engine.

"That was tough for him. That was tough for our relationship."

However, Wolff emphasised that Norris has much longer to recover the deficit than Hamilton did.

"The difference is there's nine races left," Wolff said. "Certainly a blow to the championship, but not impossible. That's tough."