Carlos Sainz sends brutal message to Lando Norris after Oscar Piastri’s overtake at Monza

Follow us on Google Discover

Lando Norris learned during the Italian Grand Prix just how difficult winning a Formula 1 world championship is going to be.

The gap between Lando Norris and Max Verstappen is 62 points with eight race weekends remaining which is already an extremely large deficit to overcome.

Red Bull are plummeting like a stone right now with Verstappen questioning the decisions his team have made over recent months that have turned his car into a ‘monster’.

However, while the Dutch driver is no longer troubling Norris on the track, he’s still got plenty of obstacles to overcome.

Norris may not have expected Charles Leclerc to be one of them given he started the Italian Grand Prix in 4^th.

READ MORE: McLaren driver Lando Norris’ life outside F1 from height and parents to celebration

The Monegasque driver saw George Russell go off at the first corner and then pounced when Norris failed to hold onto the lead going into the Roggia chicane.

Speaking to the Spanish press, via Mundo Deportivo, Leclerc’s teammate Carlos Sainz had a message for his old McLaren partner Norris after the race.

Sainz and Norris are close friends but the Spaniard has warned the two-time race winner about Oscar Piastri.

The Australian youngster pulled off a brilliant move to take the lead of the race and was only denied victory by Ferrari’s superior tyre management and strategy.

Sainz believes that Norris has to be careful of the 23-year-old while Martin Brundle believes Piastri has no interest in helping Norris win the championship at this stage of the season.

Carlos Sainz sends Oscar Piastri warning to Lando Norris after Monza

Sainz was asked about the first-lap incident between the two McLaren drivers and said: “It shows you that there are no friends here and that you cannot trust anyone.”

The Spaniard was then asked about his performance in general and continued: “There was a moment in the race when I thought I could win.

READ MORE: Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz’s life outside F1 from full name, girlfriend and height

“Especially because I thought that all the cars that had stopped so early would go for two stops and I had the feeling that one stop could be done and that would still give me the chance to win the race.

“Then it turned out that even the one who stopped so early could have gone for one stop.

“I think that as a team we did a very good job, taking risks and being one of the only ones to try to go for one stop and taking a risk that paid off because Ferrari won at Monza.”

David Coulthard sees positives for McLaren despite Piastri and Norris not working together

McLaren have allowed their drivers to race using their papaya rules although after the first lap, they never got close enough to each other for that to be an issue.

Piastri has finished directly ahead of Norris in Hungary and Monza now and that would have added 10 points to Norris’s tally should McLaren have prioritised the Brit.

However, while Norris won’t want to be handed the title, he may hope for some collaboration from his teammate sooner rather than later.

READ MORE: McLaren driver Oscar Piastri’s life outside F1 from height to girlfriend

David Coulthard believes that McLaren fans can still be pleased after Monza despite neither driver standing on the top step of the podium.

They’ve made incredible progress this season and will hope they can take further steps forward before the end of the year and going into the final year of these regulations.

If Norris misses out on the title this year, he and Piastri will both already set their sights on winning the championship in 2025.