Peter Windsor tells 21-podium F1 driver he needs to stop being ‘Mr Corporate’

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Max Verstappen has failed to win nearly half of this season’s 13 races. But the good news is that none of his rivals have won more than one.

At the Hungarian Grand Prix on Sunday, Oscar Piastri became the seventh different victor of the campaign. Only once since 2003 have there been more (eight in 2012).

After opening the season with back-to-back triumphs, Verstappen retired with a brake issue at the Australian GP. Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz was the driver to capitalise.

Lando Norris also needed some luck to win his first-ever Grand Prix in Miami, with a safety car playing perfectly into his hands. But Charles Leclerc beat a struggling Verstappen fair and square in Monaco.

In Austria, the collision between Norris and Verstappen gifted the victory to George Russell. And then it was Lewis Hamilton’s turn at Silverstone, a weekend where Red Bull had the third-fastest car.

McLaren are the nearest challengers in the constructors’ at the moment, closing the gap to 54 points with their one-two in Budapest. But having had perhaps the strongest all-round package for a sustained period now, they’ll be ruing their missed opportunities too.

Peter Windsor says Lando Norris needs to be a pure ‘racing driver’

Norris could genuinely be competing for the championship at this point. While Kimi Raikkonen has overturned a similar deficit (the Englishman is 76 points behind), he’s more than likely left himself with too much to do.

Strategic blunders cost him the win in Canada and Great Britain, while he failed to convert poles in Spain and Hungary after poor starts. Verstappen may have been penalised for the Austria crash, but Norris might take a different approach if he could relive the battle.

Last weekend, he begrudgingly moved over for teammate Piastri, who had passed him at turn one. The team felt this was only fair given that Norris had taken the lead through a defensive undercut, coming into the pits two laps earlier.

Speaking on the Cameron F1 YouTube channel, journalist Peter Windsor suggested that Norris had only done this to protect his image. And until that stops being a priority, he apparently won’t reach the next level.

“He isn’t going to progress if he becomes the ultimate team player, Mr Corporate, Mr Professional Formula 1 driver,” he said. “He’s got to get back to being a racing driver, which is what he was before all this corporate social media rubbish.”

David Coulthard absolutely loved one Lando Norris radio message

Norris, who has just under nine million Instagram followers, is one of the most popular drivers on the grid. Only Hamilton, Leclerc, Verstappen, Daniel Ricciardo and Sainz have more.

But the implication from Windsor is that Norris can’t become preoccupied with his popularity. He needs to develop a ruthless streak to win world championships.

Some have suggested that the seven points Norris left on the table at the Hungaroring could make all the difference at the end of the season. 1997 title-winner Jacques Villeneuve says this would be a ‘terrible’ eventuality for McLaren.

It would be wrong to say that the 21-podium driver has been totally acquiescent. For instance, Norris delighted F1 pundit David Coulthard when he insisted that Piastri should catch up if he wanted to overtake, though he did eventually slow down on the pit straight.