2025-09-05 11:36:23
Lando Norris received an apology from McLaren bosses Zak Brown and Andrea Stella after he was forced to retire from the Dutch Grand Prix.
The British driver – who is 34 points behind championship leader and teammate Oscar Piastri – was on course to finish second at Zandvoort when a car part failed, leading to an oil leak and the shutting down of his engine, but he found it “surprisingly easy” to “move on” from the team’s first mechanical retirement since the 2023 Bahrain Grand Prix.
He said: “It’s not Andrea’s fault, it’s not Zak’s fault. I think it was 60-something races without a technical failure, without any issues. I think that’s a record for ourselves. It’s something we’re pretty proud about.
“For that to happen now, that’s just being unlucky. It wasn’t a bad job by anyone. It was just various things coming together and then just being unlucky.
“Andrea and Zak apologised because it feels like it’s their behalf to apologise, but it’s not their fault. They apologised because they feel like they have let me down, the same as I apologise when I feel like I let them down.
“Otherwise, it’s life. You just can’t do anything about it. I can literally only look ahead to the next few races and then try and to do more than I’ve ever done.”
Despite the setback, Lando is still feeling optimistic about the rest of the season.
He said: “There are still plenty of races to try and make up for the points I lost last weekend. I’ve got to look at it that way rather than any other way, so that’s the way I’ll be doing it.
“I mean, every weekend I’m trying to win; I don’t need to change that. If there are those situations where we have to race, of course no one is going to want to make it easier for one another, whether it’s Oscar for me or me for Oscar.
“He’s still my team-mate at the end of the day. We still have to respect each other a lot, but we always race each other well and on the limit, and that’s how we will continue to be.
“I really don’t pay attention to the luck and all these things, there’s no point,” he added. “I don’t want to waste my time on hoping for it or praying for it, or whatever. I was unlucky last weekend and that’s life, it happens.
“It might get to the end of the year and nothing else happens and if I lose the championship by the amount of points I lost on the weekend, then that’s tough, that’s life, I’ll move on and I’ll come back again next year and try and do better.
“I don’t wish for bad luck for anyone else, it was just I was unlucky that weekend and this weekend I have to come back and try and do better.”
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