Lando Norris left Nico Rosberg 'baffled' by what he did in Singapore - 'Very strange'

Nico Rosberg claimed he was left "baffled" by mistakes made by Lando Norris at the Singapore Grand Prix in 2024, which almost cost him his victory. Norris will be looking to claw back some ground on Oscar Piastri in Sunday's race at the Marina Bay Circuit.

A year ago, Norris beat Max Verstappen to the line, but his reckless errors could have seen him fall behind the Dutch star. The McLaren driver grazed one of the barriers before taking a pit stop. He later bumped against the wall and ran wide while overtaking a backmarker. Norris went on to claim his third F1 win at the race, narrowing the deficit to Verstappen in the world championship, which was ultimately won for the fourth time on the spin by the Dutchman. In spite of his race victory, 2016 champion Rosberg was stunned by the Englishman's conduct on the track. "It was very strange, the mistakes that he was doing in the race," Rosberg told Sky Sports F1 at the time. "It kind of baffled me a little bit what was going on there because he hit the wall twice.

"Both were like really severe, almost race-ending moments where he was quite lucky not to be DNF. He went miles off the track in a hairpin, out-braking, but really not a small out-braking, like a massive out-braking.

"And the other time he hit the same wall that George Russell hit last year where he went crashing out on the last lap of the race. And what you maybe don't remember is he went off the track again when he was passing a back-marker, which was a Williams."

He continued: "I can't remember myself or a Max Verstappen or Lewis [Hamilton], when leading so comfortably with 30 seconds, making three major mistakes like that. That was a bit strange."

This season, Norris has once again been his own worst enemy in his title tussle with McLaren team-mate Piastri, who has edged ahead in the Drivers' Championship heading into Sunday's Grand Prix, despite a poor race last time out. Piastri leads the standings and has won seven races to Norris' five this season, with Norris having a 25-point deficit to overturn in the remaining six races.

Norris' troublesome and seemingly random errors have persisted this season. He crashed out of the Canadian GP in trying to overtake Piastri and later apologised for the incident.

"I thought Oscar would move a bit more to the right, not to leave a gap obviously - I don't expect something to be easy from him, but I just misjudged it," Norris said to the official F1 website.

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"It was all my mistake, I take full blame, so I apologise to my whole team and to Oscar for attempting something like that. There's going for it like in the hairpin - a good, fair move - and there's being stupid like I was at the end."

In Azerbaijan, poor qualifying left him with too much to do come race day. "A tricky race and a tricky weekend overall," Norris told the official McLaren F1 website.

"Today the pace was okay, but not enough to overtake. After not doing a good enough job yesterday, and a lack of real strategy options, there wasn't much more we could have done. Frustrating and not how I wanted the weekend to go, but we'll get our heads down now and look ahead to Singapore."

While Singapore is a notoriously tricky race, with it being held in the evening and often in extreme humidity, Norris is excited about his chances. "I'm looking forward to racing under the lights again in Singapore," he said.

"It was good to be back in Woking after Baku, resetting with the team and spending time in the sim. I've got good memories here - a podium and a win last year - so I'm ready to go for it again."

As for the threat of Verstappen, who has won the last two races in Italy and Azerbaijan and now finds himself 44 points adrift of Norris in the standings, the 25-year-old said of the Dutchman's chances of performing a remarkable comeback: "I mean, there's a chance, so... more than zero. I don't know."