Lando Norris called “his own worst enemy” as mental “baggage” threatens F1 title hopes

2009 F1 world champion Jenson Button says Lando Norris needs to accept that all drivers make mistakes and that it’s “part of racing”.

Norris sits just eight points behind teammate Oscar Piastri ahead of this weekend’s Belgian Grand Prix.

After a difficult Canadian Grand Prix, where Norris crashed into his teammate in the closing laps, he responded with back-to-back F1 victories.

Since becoming a regular front runner in F1, one trait Norris has continued to display is his self-critical nature.

Norris is one of the few drivers on the grid to be openly critical of himself and his driving, leading to suggestions that he’s possibly not mentally strong enough to be an F1 world champion.

Assessing the F1 title battle ahead of Spa this week, Button offered Norris some advice.

“Austria was a really important weekend for Lando,” he told the official F1 website.

“I think if it went on any longer without Lando winning, mentally it’s very tough for a driver. Especially someone like Lando, who I think can be his own worst enemy at times – he puts a lot of pressure on himself.

“He’s unbelievably quick, but if he makes a tiny mistake, he really takes it to heart. He’s got to realise that we all make mistakes. It happens, it’s part of racing, and more often than not you lose rather than win.

“I love his personality, and I really think he’s super-quick. Oscar’s a very different personality, very level-headed.Nothing seems to faze him, and that makes him a very, very difficult competitor.”

Norris has mental “baggage”

Former F1 steward Johnny Herbert feels the title race will come down to both drivers’ “mentality”.

Herbert thinks that mental “baggage” has affected Norris this year.

“Oscar’s come into F1 in a very, very mature way. He’s got himself in a good team at the right time and he’s delivering,” Herbert added.

“But then I throw it on the other side, and Lando is improving… he’s probably a later developer in some ways, but he has changed over the last couple of years. I think the incident in Canada, the positives of Austria and Silverstone… I always say it’s about capacity, and I think his brain capacity sometimes gets full up.

“There’s the baggage that comes with everything that’s going on, and I know from my own career, there are times where you’ve got to get rid of baggage that’s hanging around your neck. It’s going to be down to the mentality of both of them.

“But they’re both youngish and they’re only going to get better as time goes by, like Max has done, like Lewis did, Ayrton Senna, Alain Prost, Michael Schumacher… they have that wonderful ability to find a way of moving up every time the performance of the car gets better. With all the little ups and downs they’ve had, they’re still very, very close overall. It’ll only be one over the other come the end of the year.”