ESPN
Aug 31, 2025, 12:48 PM ET
Lando Norris faces an uphill battle in his bid for the Formula 1 world title after he retired from the Dutch Grand Prix that his teammate and rival won.
Norris started second on the grid at Zandvoort and trailed Oscar Piastri by just 1.5 seconds before he was forced to retire on Lap 53 of 72 when he reported smoke from his cockpit.
Piastri went on to win Sunday's dramatic race in a pole-to-flag victory, despite two safety car periods, and increased the nine-point gap between the McLaren drivers to 34 in the drivers' championship with nine races remaining.
Norris said his retirement was "unlucky," but he has to "take it on the chin and move on."
"[I] just want to go have a burger and go home," he told reporters. "It wasn't my fault, so there's nothing I can really do. It's just not my weekend. A little bit unlucky yesterday with the wind [in qualifying] and unlucky today. Tough one. Of course, it's frustrating. It hurts a bit for sure in a championship point of view. It's a lot of points to lose so quickly and so easily.
"That's life, so that's why I just take it on the chin and move on."
While the Brit praised his teammate, Norris accepts the gap will be difficult to close.
"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," he said. "I have a good teammate, he's strong, he's quick in every situation, every scenario. It's hard to get things back on someone who is just good in pretty much every situation. It certainly hasn't helped. It's a lot of points to lose so quickly and so easily.
"Nothing I can control now, just take it on the chin and move on. But it's almost a big enough gap now that I can just chill out about it and just go for it."
Norris lost second place to the fast-starting home favourite Max Verstappen on the opening lap, the Dutchman blasting around the outside of turn two to delight his fervent support.
The British driver was soon back ahead, charging through on Lap 9, but Piastri had pulled clear.
Norris could not offer a threat to Piastri at either safety car restart -- when Ferrari pair Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc both retired after they ended up in the barriers at Turn 3.
But he held off Verstappen on both occasions and McLaren appeared set to land a record-equalling fifth successive one-two finish before a rare reliability issue.
On the engine issue, Norris said:"There's nothing the team told me or said. I think it was pretty instant as well. I don't know what the actual issue was even. The engine just shut off and that was it. Reliability has been pretty bulletproof the last few years for the car side, the engine side.
"This might be the first one that I can remember that's cost us any points or anything at all."
Formula 1 one heads to Monza next weekend for the Italian Grand Prix.
Information from PA contributed to this report.
