Lando Norris criticised for ‘overdriving’ after Spanish GP qualifying loss to Oscar Piastri

2016 F1 world champion Nico Rosberg felt Lando Norris was “overdriving” and “overdoing it” during qualifying at the Spanish Grand Prix.

A scrappy final lap in Q3 meant Norris could not bag another F1 pole position.

Instead, Oscar Piastri put it together to take pole position by over two-tenths.

It was an impressive showing by Piastri, who struggled in qualifying 12 months ago at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.

Rosberg, who’s commentating for Sky Sports this weekend, felt it was another case of Norris struggling to perform under pressure.

“Lando was in front before the last run in Q3,” Rosberg said. “He was the favourite until that very last moment. Just looking at that lap now, it’s just beautiful, it’s just perfect.

“Under the highest pressure, he always delivers the maximum of his potential. Then you see the lap from Lando and I was watching it live, and from Turn 1 onwards just overdoing it, overdriving, all the way round in every corner you saw him go out wide, coming off line a little bit and having extra snaps, and that just resulted in being two-tenths down through the lap.

“The pole position was in the head today. It was right in the head. Unfortunately, as we’ve seen over and over from Lando, when the pressure is highest you start to see these little mistakes there. They creeped in and that happened again today.”

Norris returned to the top step of the podium last time out in Monaco.

Monaco was Norris’ first win since the season-opening Australian Grand Prix, which got his F1 title charge back on track.

There are just three points between Piastri and Norris going into Sunday’s race.

Assessing Norris’ performance, Sky pundit Naomi Schiff said: “I don’t know if it’s necessarily a feature of the circuit but you could clearly see there with Lando’s driving that he was causing himself that loss of time by trying to overdo it.

“I think whilst we thought he might come here with a more confident head on his shoulders he’s still desperate to prove he’s the quicker driver in the team. Sometimes when you’re too eager to prove it you push it too far in your lap. He overshot the mark in a few corners and cost himself that pole position today.”