Alarming habit Lando Norris won't shift nearly ended his F1 title hopes already
Lando Norris went incredibly close to crashing out of the Singapore Grand Prix despite being well clear of F1 championship rival Max Verstappen
by Mark Whiley · The MirrorA Lando Norris habit almost led to his F1 championship hopes going up in smoke on the streets of Singapore.
Norris was in a race of his own on the Marina Bay track, finishing more than 20 seconds clear of Max Verstappen to cut his deficit to the Red Bull driver to 52 points. Despite his dominance, the McLaren star’s race wasn’t without incident as he almost crashed on two occasions.
First, he ran wide at a right-hander, almost piling into a wall. He then brushed a wall on his outside when slightly heftier contact would have almost certainly ended his race, and his title challenge as Verstappen would have gone a massive 84 points clear.
Shortly after the second near miss, race engineer Will Joseph came on the radio, telling Norris to apply “full concentration” and to “take a drink”. The second instruction referred to his driver's insistence on not drinking during races.
Singapore, with its immense heat and unrelenting nature of the track, is physically the toughest grand prix of the year. Drivers are often left dehydrated, which can hinder concentration levels, with Norris himself left feeling “dizzy” after the race.
Not only does he not drink during races, he often doesn’t even have a drinks bottle in the car, although he would have had one in Singapore. He said in September, reported Racing News 365: "I don't drink ever during a race. I often don't run with a drinks bottle.
"I think I've drunk from my water bottle twice ever in Formula 1 - and both those times when I've just been very ill, like in Barcelona a couple of years ago. I do try and do it. I just really struggle to and often just forget. [I] don't like drinking during the race.
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"But there's other ways around of just making sure I have good energy with bars and certain drinks that I can have small amounts of, but of high concentration."
Norris also struggles to take on food and drink before races because of nervous energy. He revealed: “Before the races, I still get just as excited and just as nervous. I barely eat anything on Sundays. I struggle to drink anything on Sundays, just because of nerves and because of pressure.”
The impact of racing for almost two hours in Singapore was underlined by the Mercedes duo of Lewis Hamilton and George Russell suffering “borderline heatstroke” and not able to conduct their post-race media duties.
“They did not feel well, borderline heatstroke or something like that but they have had water,” said Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff. “They would not have been able to go to the [media] pen. There were no bad feelings or any annoyance. It is just that we had the doctors with them. But they are all good.”
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