How a weakness turned into a 'super strenght' for Lando Norris

10:33, 06 Nov

byTobia Elia

Jacques Villeneuve praised Lando Norris for his remarkable mental clarity, particularly in owning up to his mistakes and taking full responsibility.

“Owning your own mistakes, and even the ones that aren’t yours, that’s how you actually step up”

- Jacques Villeneuve

According to the former Canadian driver, it’s the McLaren driver’s intellectual honesty that has allowed him to grow over recent months: “Lando was always very vocal about his mistakes. Even when they weren’t, he was actually taking the blame, and everybody judged that as him being so weak and beaten and down, and I always thought no, actually, being able to admit, to go out like that, to always take the blame, that’s how you make progress.

Villeneuve believes that owning up to one’s mistakes and taking responsibility even when not at fault is actually a strong sign of strength rather than weakness.

“Owning your own mistakes, and even the ones that aren’t yours, that’s how you actually step up, understand, what can I do different so I don’t get into that situation again. It’s not a weakness. It’s a super strength, to be able to blurt it out like that.”

Photo: Race Pictures

“In modern society and social media, you just get blasted. ‘Oh, look how weak he is. He’s talking down on himself.’ No, that wasn’t weakness, and we can see it now with the reaction where a lot of other drivers are completely expressionless.”

The 1997 world champion finally drew a parallel with Kimi Räikkönen, long regarded as an ice-cool driver, but who, according to the Canadian, also hid certain vulnerabilities.

“We had the same thing with Raikkonen in the past. Everybody would say, ‘Oh, Iceman. Look, nothing gets to him.’ And that was totally the opposite. Internally, they were melting, but we just couldn’t see it, and by the time we realised, it’s often too late.”

Key detail spotted behind unusual Norris-Piastri performance gap

In recent races, particularly from Monza onward, the performance gap between the two McLaren drivers has widened unexpectedly, with Norris outqualifying his teammate by six and a half tenths in Mexico and beating him by a massive 42 seconds in the race.

A gap far too large for drivers sharing the same car, especially for one with championship ambitions.

But what’s behind it? Juan Pablo Montoya doesn’t buy into the sabotage theory that has been circulating in recent weeks; instead, he has pinpointed a very specific factor to explain the difference between the two.

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