New contender for the title after Canada? The championship leader answers

08:14, 21 Jun

Updated: 08:53, 21 Jun

byKada Sarkozi

Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri collided at the Canadian Grand Prix, which led to the 'DNF' of the British driver. That led to the Australian gaining on his rival in the standings, but he does not want to get carried away.

On Lap 67, as Norris was chasing his teammate on the start-finish straight, the Briton ran into the back of Piastri, also made contact with the wall and damaged his MCL39. Afterwards, he immediately apologised for the incident.

Piastri gains in standings

This also meant that instead of possible finishing behind his teammate, Piastri earned 12 points more than Norris did after crossing the finish line in P4 behind the two Mercedes drivers and Max Verstappen.

Currently, the gap between the Woking-based team's drivers stands at 22 points. For the Australian, this doesn't feel like a victory, he explained at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.

"I mean, it's still so, so long to go. That points gap is only, if Lando wins three races and I finish second, it’s one point in three races again. That's not how I want to build the margin."

"This weekend wasn't strong enough from myself. I think as a team we also recognise it was a challenging one and we need to be stronger. Plenty of things to work on and not obviously [I’m] not content finishing fourth."

Are Mercedes also in the battle?

In Canada, after starting from pole position, George Russell did not look back and claimed his fourth victory in Formula 1. The Briton is as a result fourth in the standings, 62 points behind Piastri and also behind Max Verstappen.

The Australian driver would not consider the Briton to be a contender because of the gap.

"George is quite a long way behind. They were quick here last year. I feel like this is kind of the result that they should have achieved last year, I guess. We'll see. I think they've been very promising at a lot of races, especially in qualifying. I think today they finally converted it in a race, but I still am confident in our team for the long run," he concluded.