{"id":69123,"date":"2025-08-15T02:17:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-15T02:17:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/69123\/"},"modified":"2025-08-15T02:17:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-15T02:17:08","slug":"alex-jacques-saw-an-undervalued-lando-norris-trait-in-formula-2-that-could-win-him-the-2025-f1-title","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/69123\/","title":{"rendered":"Alex Jacques saw an \u2018undervalued\u2019 Lando Norris trait in Formula 2 that could win him the 2025 F1 title"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

With three wins in the last four races before the summer break, Lando Norris is closing in on Oscar Piastri in the battle for the 2025 F1 world championship. <\/p>\n

As the title battle heats up, F1 Oversteer spoke exclusively to commentator Alex Jacques<\/a> during the mid-season break about Norris\u2019s resurgence.<\/p>\n

It was looking like Piastri<\/a> would run into the mid-season with a healthy points advantage over Norris<\/a>, after the pair collided in the closing stages of the Canadian Grand Prix.<\/p>\n

Norris quickly put things to one side, and that enabled him to come back with a dominant victory at the following race in Spielberg. You could argue that Norris was lucky in Silverstone because of a Safety Car infringement from Piastri<\/a>, but in Hungary, he delivered a strategic masterclass.<\/p>\n

The Briton has answered a few important questions that were being asked of him following a patchy start to the year, but Jacques believes this mimics the same ability he had during the 2018 title battle with George Russell in the feeder series Formula 2. <\/p>\n

\"F1Photo by Song Haiyuan\/MB Media\/Getty ImagesAlex Jacques thinks Lando Norris has \u2018undervalued\u2019 trait of staying in contention <\/p>\n

F2 is where drivers learn their last bit of race craft before making it to F1, often displaying some of the traits that make them who they are when they have the attention of the world\u2019s media. <\/p>\n

Norris displayed one characteristic that made him stand out, according to Jacques: \u201cWeirdly, there\u2019s a very key trait of Lando Norris that he\u2019s shown again this year in his first full season as a title protagonist. <\/p>\n

\u201cIn Formula 2, he just couldn\u2019t really get the Pirelli tyre to work with that car. So he spent the entire season just trying to hang in the battle. And I know it was a massive source of stress, in that George Russell had an in-season test, which they all attend.<\/p>\n

\u201cRussell was able to get an understanding in that in-season test of how to make the Pirelli rubber work, that Norris never really with his team, got on top of, so they were constantly having to almost drive around the problem.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd it\u2019s been very similar this year. Lando can\u2019t access his ferocious speed as consistently as Oscar Piastri can with this car. That\u2019s the evidence that we\u2019ve got across the first 14 rounds.<\/p>\n

\u201cVery similar in Formula 2. He won early, in his third race, so he did a couple of races at the back end of the year, and then he joined in 2018, won in Bahrain, and then was expected to rattle off the victories.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut it just had to turn into a campaign of consistency and ultimately finished runner-up. It was his ability to hang in there that I think I\u2019ve seen again this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an undervalued trait of a driver to be able to stay in contention when it\u2019s not working perfectly. Just the question then becomes, can you make the breakthrough that perhaps he couldn\u2019t in F2? He was only in there for a single full season, and then obviously McLaren wanted him in that car as quickly as possible, and the results since have backed that up.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hadn\u2019t really thought about that aspect of his driving since that year. The way that he found a way to stay in contention, even though things were not perfect in terms of performance. We\u2019ve seen that again this year.\u201d<\/p>\n

How many points have Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri lost at the halfway point?<\/p>\n

Norris has often been criticised for his errors on track, which have cost him critical points when it matters in on-track skirmishes. During the 2024 battle with Max Verstappen for the title, Norris made too many unforced errors<\/a> that put him behind in the points table.<\/p>\n

McLaren has the luxury of being able to run away with the title this year, and the battle between Norris and Piastri has seen its fair share of ups and downs. <\/p>\n

RaceNorrisPiastriAustralia1st \u2013 25 points (none lost)9th \u2013 2 points (16 \u2013 23 points lost)Japan2nd \u2013 18 points (7 points lost)3rd \u2013 15 points (12 \u2013 10 points lost)Saudi Arabia4th \u2013 12 points (6 \u2013 13 points lost) 1st \u2013 25 points (none lost)Emilia Romagna2nd \u2013 18 points (7 points lost)3rd \u2013 15 points (12 \u2013 10 points lost)Monaco1st \u2013 25 points (none lost)3rd \u2013 15 points (12 \u2013 10 points lost)Canada18th \u2013 0 points (18 \u2013 25 points lost)4th \u2013 12 points (6 \u2013 13 points lost)Points lost versus potential points gained (none 1st or 2nd finishes)<\/p>\n

Piastri notably missed out on crucial points in the season opener when he spun off the track in the wet conditions. Although he recovered to ninth after a sensational move on Lewis Hamilton, it cost him well over 15 points. <\/p>\n

An error in qualifying at Japan enabled Verstappen to take pole, with Piastri slipping to third. Then in Saudi Arabia the tables would turn for Norris, who crashed out and could only finish fourth in the race. <\/p>\n

Piastri forfeited more points in Imola when he let Verstappen pull off a stunning move at Tamburello, but the most points lost were arguably Canada for Norris. Since then, it\u2019s been 1-2 all the way for the McLaren duo, but it will come down to who makes the fewest mistakes. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With three wins in the last four races before the summer break, Lando Norris is closing in on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":69124,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[43116,64,63,1737,913,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-69123","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-motosport","8":"tag-alex-jacques","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-lando-norris","12":"tag-mclaren","13":"tag-motor","14":"tag-motor-sports","15":"tag-motosport","16":"tag-motosports","17":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69123","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=69123"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69123\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}