{"id":288141,"date":"2025-11-16T11:17:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-16T11:17:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/288141\/"},"modified":"2025-11-16T11:17:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-16T11:17:08","slug":"lando-norris-hit-with-keep-it-in-the-family-rally-cry-by-hill-in-mclaren-title-fight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/288141\/","title":{"rendered":"Lando Norris hit with ‘keep it in the family’ rally cry by Hill in McLaren title fight"},"content":{"rendered":"

Damon Hill admits that, from a \u201cpatriotic point of view\u201d, he is rooting for his compatriot Lando Norris to win the title.<\/p>\n

But, he concedes, it is by no means a done deal as Oscar Piastri could reverse his flagging fortunes, and one cannot write off Max Verstappen as he won\u2019t go down without a fight.<\/p>\n

Damon Hill reveals who he\u2019s rooting for in F1 2025 title fight<\/p>\n

Early championship leader Norris<\/a> regained P1 in the Drivers\u2019 standings at the Mexico City Grand Prix before racing out to a 24-point lead over Piastri with a dominant weekend in Brazil.<\/p>\n

Norris\u2019 hopes of winning the World title had suffered a crushing blow at the Dutch Grand Prix where an oil line failure put the Briton out of the race and dropped him 34 points behind race winner Piastri.<\/p>\n

That, though, was the last time Piastri outscored Norris.<\/p>\n

In the six races since, the momentum in the McLaren intra-team battle has swung in Norris\u2019 favour, beginning in Monza when McLaren controversially ordered Piastri to give second place back to his teammate after a botched pitstop cost the Brit a position to Piastri on the track.<\/p>\n

Scoring 115 points to Piastri\u2019s 57 since Zandvoort, Norris has overturned his 34-point deficit to lead by 24.<\/p>\n

Lando Norris v Oscar Piastri: McLaren head-to-head scores<\/p>\n

\ud83d\udc49\u00a0F1 2025: Head-to-head qualifying statistics between team-mates<\/a><\/p>\n

\ud83d\udc49\u00a0F1 2025: Head-to-head race statistics between team-mates<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s found something, hasn\u2019t he?\u201d 1996 World Champion Hill told the Mirror. \u201cAnd it\u2019s been perfect timing.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s come at a time when Oscar suddenly looks a bit forlorn, a bit under pressure. They\u2019re both learning about fighting for a World Championship\u2026 It\u2019s not the same as just driving.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom a patriotic point of view, of course we\u2019re rooting for Lando \u2013 keep it in the family a little bit! We\u2019ve got a great record in this country of world champions. We always seem to be able to produce a new one. If one of us withers, then there\u2019s another one waiting.\u201d<\/p>\n

But while Norris is waiting, with 83 points still in play, the title is by no means secure.<\/p>\n

In a season in which momentum has swung from Norris to Piastri to Verstappen and back to Norris, there\u2019s nothing to say there won\u2019t be another momentum shift in the final three races of the championship.<\/p>\n

And Hill reckons Piastri\u2019s manager Mark Webber could help the Australian driver effect such a change.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis trajectory, he was getting stronger and stronger, but you can\u2019t ignore the fact that he\u2019s had a bit of a blip,\u201d he said of McLaren\u2019s Australian driver.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat they\u2019re very good at doing, these young drivers, is they\u2019re good at analysing what might be causing that and they\u2019ll fix it. If they\u2019re any good, they\u2019ll find out what\u2019s going on and get stronger. Formula 1 is about finding out what you\u2019re made of.<\/p>\n

\u201cMark is able to guide him and give him some encouragement, hopefully, on that side of things. You do need to draw on resources, as a driver. It can be quite a lonely place if you don\u2019t have someone whose brain you can pick. You certainly can\u2019t go around the place asking everyone, you have to have trusted advisors.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is, however, not yet \u2013 and perhaps it will never be \u2013 a McLaren-only title fight as reigning World Champion Verstappen is still in the running.<\/p>\n

Despite racing from the pit lane to P3 in the Brazilian Grand Prix, the 28-year-old is now 49 points behind Norris which is a deficit that most drivers would not be able to overcome in three grand prix weekends.<\/p>\n

Max Verstappen, though, isn\u2019t most drivers.<\/p>\n

\u201cNobody\u2019s counting him out because they\u2019ve seen what he\u2019s done before,\u201d declared Hill.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust when you think he\u2019s on the floor and the count\u2019s gone to nine, he jumps up and delivers the knockout blow. He will not give up while there\u2019s a sliver of a chance and he\u2019ll be a factor in races to come.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read next: Driver championship chokes: Five times the F1 points leader threw away a likely championship<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Damon Hill admits that, from a \u201cpatriotic point of view\u201d, he is rooting for his compatriot Lando Norris…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":288142,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,26956,817,813,816,818,1737,913,44,2333,17165,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-288141","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-formula-1","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-damon-hill","11":"tag-f1","12":"tag-formula-1","13":"tag-formula1","14":"tag-home-page","15":"tag-lando-norris","16":"tag-mclaren","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-oscar-piastri","19":"tag-popular","20":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=288141"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288141\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/288142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}