Damon Hill rates Oscar Piastri’s F1 championship hopes after ‘rare’ Lando Norris retirement

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The Formula 1 drivers’ championship took a dramatic turn in Oscar Piastri’s favour at the Dutch Grand Prix.

Lando Norris led every practice session at the Dutch Grand Prix as he looked to close the nine-point gap to Oscar Piastri in the drivers’ championship after the summer break.

However, Piastri nicked pole position with a brilliant final lap on Saturday, and while both Ferrari drivers ended up in the barriers behind them, it looked like another McLaren one-two at Zandvoort.

For the second year running, Lando Norris lost out to Max Verstappen at the start of the race, but pulled off a brilliant move going around the outside of the four-time world champion going into turn one to re-take second place.

There was a moment after the second safety car when Norris was within a second of his teammate, but a move was never on, and just a few laps later, disaster struck.

Norris’ car suffered a failure, and he pulled off to the side of the track, promoting Verstappen and Racing Bulls rookie Isack Hadjar into a podium position for the first time.

Damon Hill has now commented on Sunday’s dramatic race and how he sees the title race panning out now after Piastri extended his lead to 34 points.

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Posting on X immediately after the race, 1996 Formula 1 world champion Damon Hill said: “Shame for Lando. A rare mechanical Oops.

“Great drive from Oscar as we’ve come to expect. Odds on fav now.

“But that Hadjar is so solid, isn’t he? If these cars were a bit smaller, Zandvoort would be a really great race track.

“Love all the ups and downs and banked corners.”

Andrea Stella was asked about how Norris’ retirement will impact McLaren’s stance on the championship battle, and admitted: “I think today we experienced the two sides of motorsport.

“On one side, we have the joy, the satisfaction of another victory for McLaren, a deserved victory for Oscar – he ran a very strong and clean weekend.

“And on the opposite side, we have the disappointment and the pain for our retirement.

“Lando was in contention to try to win the race. It was certainly P1, P2 possible today for McLaren. We had the joy and the pain at the same time; this is motor racing.”

McLaren’s team principal was then asked what caused Norris to retire and explained: “We don’t know yet.

“It would be unfair to speculate whether it’s a chassis problem or an engine problem. We are one team, we go together, there’s no difference in terms of where the responsibility lies.

“We will review, we will see where the problem is, we will fix it, and we will go again.”

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Jacques Villeneuve thinks Lando Norris will believe Dutch Grand Prix DNF is ‘so unfair’

Hill’s old Williams teammate, Jacques Villeneuve, was speaking on Sky Sports F1 about Norris’ retirement and admitted: “It’s really tough because it’s not in the driver’s hands, and he will feel that it’s so unfair.

“In the past, it didn’t matter because a lot of cars broke down, so it would always balance out.

“But now, cars don’t break down anymore, so when one breaks down, it probably won’t be balanced by the other side.”

Piastri will be well aware that he’s only one mechanical failure away from Norris being able to swing the momentum back in his favour.

Time is running out for Norris to catch the Australian, and given McLaren are so far ahead of all of their rivals, it’s unlucky that the likes of Verstappen, George Russell or either Ferrari will be able to have their say on how the championship plays out.