Norris falls short on brutal comparisson to Mansell: 'Doesn't have the heart to win'

Peter Windsor has given his two cents on Lando Norris' mental approach to F1 racing, and doesn't think the Briton believes it in his heart of hearts that he can win.

Why Piastri has edge on Norris in F1 2025: 'The thing about Lando...'

Norris is going through a negative streak at the moment, with the Briton falling short of the potential in his otherwise dominant MCL39 three race weekends in a row.

"It's now 2-1, Oscar Piastri versus Lando Norris in terms of wins, isn't it? And that's a huge thing for the young Englishman that everybody's been touting as the next world champion," says Windsor in Cameron CC's podcast.

"The thing about Lando, I was thinking about him out this morning when I went to go for a walk, was that he does have weekends when just he's just perfect from beginning to end, isn't he? And he gets it absolutely right and there's no way Oscar can live with him unless Oscar does something really special," the former F1 team manager acknowledges.

Norris lacks the heart belief to win in F1

However, there's an aspect to the current F1 championship leader, the Australian analyst fails to comprehend, which flared up at last weekend's F1 Bahrain Grand Prix.

"There's the other psychological side of Lando, which is the engineer trying to gee him up and saying, 'Russell doesn't think he can go the distance on the softs, you're in good shape, you're on the best tires for the restart."

The McLaren driver's response is something that Windsor fails to understand and in comparison to British former F1 champion, Nigel Mansell, Norris simply lacks the heart to win.

"And Lando's rejoinder is, 'no, no, those soft tyres are great. They're mega tyres, wish I was on those' sort of thing. Which is almost talking himself out of it. I can't imagine in a million years, Nigel Mansell in that situation, ever thinking the guy in front had got any advantage over him whatsoever."

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"And Nigel's only methodology would have been, 'I'm the fastest guy out there. I'm going to pass this guy and I'm out of there. I'm going to be on the podium, straight win this race.' He would never think any other way."

Because, according to the F1 analyst is not a matter of simply believing, but sopmething more powerful beyond that. "And it wasn't just thinking that way, it was believing that, it was believing that from the heart, you know, and right inside him.

"And you just get the feeling that some weekends, Lando just doesn't have that. Maybe as I said a couple of conversations ago, maybe he's too intelligent."

After being unable to get a handle on teammate Piastri in Bahrain, Norris has told McLaren he will do the utmost to step up his game this weekend when the F1 circus touches down in Jeddah, for the 2025 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.