How Lando Norris stormed back to take F1 championship lead

When Lando Norris parked his stricken McLaren during the Dutch Grand Prix, many thought that the definitive blow to his title charge had been landed, but in the next five races he has chipped away at Oscar Piastri's lead and now is the man his rivals want to beat.

34 points was the deficit to his teammate, so how has he suddenly strangled back the points lead for the first time since April?

📲 Follow The Sporting News on WhatsApp

Italy- team orders drama

Running a comfortable second and third, Norris led Piastri at Monza until a slow pit stop for the leading McLaren allowed the Australian through. The team then demanded that Piastri should hand the place back and he complied, allowing Norris to follow Verstappen's winning Red Bull and he thus closed the title lead by three points, to 31.

Azerbaijan- Piastri's nightmare weekend

The British driver's workaday race in Baku should have been a missed opportunity. He started in seventh and stayed there; in part, due to a misjudged safety car restart and a slow pit stop, as well as a less-than-optimised final Q3 lap. 

His title chances should have been somewhat dented, but the other side of the garage endured a more torturous weekend. Piastri not only crashed out in Q3, he did so again on the first lap of the race, after initially jumping the start.

Now the gap was 25 points.

Singapore- the first lap tangle

Piastri out-qualified Norris for the first time since Zandvoort, when he lined up third for the Singapore Grand Prix, while the latter was fifth.

But to Piastri's inside at the third turn, Norris made contact with him after initially doing so with the rear of Max Verstappen's Red Bull. A disgruntled Piastri, having been barged wide, wanted the place back. 

But he would not get it, and another three points were eaten into his championship lead.

USA- a self-inflicted mess

It was not just the lost points but misjudging a possible overtake on the first lap, and subsequently knocking himself and his British teammate out of the USA sprint, meant that an already slow start to that particular weekend was not going to get any better for Piastri.

Not the start to the Sprint either Lando Norris or Oscar Piastri hoped for 😢#F1Sprint #USGP pic.twitter.com/AmyI0xmNPm

After being comprehensively beaten by Norris in the sprint shootout, he did not have any track time to understand where adjustments could have been made, given that the first lap contact led to terminal damage. 

As a result, the team could not make substantial enough set-up changes to re-discover his confidence. Thus, he hobbled on to claim fifth in the following day's main race. Norris, meanwhile, was on the podium again and slashed the gap by another eight points, to 14. 

Mexico- another mess

Alike the previous week, Piastri had little pace to threaten his teammate with. On the low-grip surface of the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, with the track always evolving, Norris flourished to take victory by half a minute. Piastri however, was fifth again after qualifying in eighth.

That singular 15-point swing was enough for the British driver to seize the championship lead again.