Norris has ‘forgotten about Zandvoort already’ and insists he doesn’t need to change approach in Piastri battle

Lando Norris has insisted that he has already forgotten about the difficult end to his race last weekend in Zandvoort, with the Briton adamant that he will not change his approach to the title battle despite having lost ground to McLaren team mate Oscar Piastri.

Norris had been running in second behind Piastri throughout the Dutch Grand Prix when a technical issue struck his car during the latter stages, forcing him to pull to the side of the track and retire from the race.

Piastri went on to take victory, meaning that the Australian now has a 34-point lead over Norris in the Drivers’ Championship with nine races remaining.

While the Italian Grand Prix forms the second in a double header sequence after Zandvoort – meaning that the field are back in action only a few days after the events of that race – Norris says that he has already moved on from what happened.

“I've forgotten about it already,” the 25-year-old explained during Thursday’s media day at Monza. “I couldn't care less about last weekend now. It's behind and I have to try and make up for some points, but it doesn't change.

“Even if I was three points behind, 10 points, 100 points, my target is to win this weekend. That's all I can do. I feel fine and ready to try again this weekend.”

Reflecting on the positives of having another race weekend so soon after Zandvoort, Norris added: “I can try and win the race and get some points. I can't really turn it around, it's not that simple.

“There's still plenty more races to try to make up for the points I lost last weekend and I've got to look at it that way rather than any other way, so that's the way I'll be doing it.”

Despite there now being more points separating him and Piastri, Norris is not planning to adopt a more ‘elbows out’ approach to his driving.

“I don't need to change anything,” the nine-time race winner said. “Every weekend I'm trying to win, and I don't need to change that. I think if there are those situations where we have to race, of course no one is going to want to make it easy for one another.

“Whether it's Oscar for me or me for Oscar, but he's still my team mate at the end of the day and we still have to respect each other a lot. I think we always race each other well and on the limit, and that's how I'll continue to be.”

Piastri, meanwhile, is also going to continue to take his same approach to the fight. When asked about this – and whether he had spoken with Norris about his retirement in Zandvoort – the Australian responded: “It's obviously never nice to see that kind of thing.

“Unfortunately, it is a part of racing but we've not really spoken much about it. There's nothing I can say that's going to make it better. For me, the approach doesn't change. I think the approach I've had this year has worked well, and for me there's no reason to change anything now.

“The gap is bigger now but it is still far from being comfortable and being able to change the way I go about things, so I’m staying the same way.”

In terms of how easy it will be to continue with this approach, Piastri added: “I think it should be quite straightforward. Me and the engineers are trying to get the most out of the car, get the most out of myself and that doesn't change whether you're first or last.

“You're always trying to get the best out of yourself and certainly in terms of car set-up, you're not going to make the car slower because of the position we're in now.

"For me that's not going to change, and even the approach to risk I don't think will change. I would still like to extend it even more because, like I said, there's still a long way to go and a bigger lead is always a better thing.”

F1 Correspondent and Presenter Lawrence Barretto says..

"McLaren tell me that the power unit Lando Norris used in Zandvoort is still being checked by Mercedes HPP, but as it went into protection shutdown mode as soon as an issue occurred, the hope is that the unit will be OK to re-enter the engine pool and be used again.

“It should be noted that the issue that forced Norris' retirement in the Netherlands was chassis-related, not an engine problem, and the team have rectified that heading into this weekend.

“Regarding power units for this weekend, both Norris and Piastri will have engine changes (these were always part of the plan and not a reaction to what happened last weekend) – with no penalties triggered."