Nico Rosberg dissects Lando Norris’ errors: ‘Hamilton wouldn’t have made those mistakes’

Nico Rosberg insisted Lewis Hamilton would not have made the same mistakes that Lando Norris did as the McLaren driver missed out on victory at the Belgian Grand Prix.

Pole-sitter Norris, after a delayed start due to heavy rain, lost the lead on the first racing lap of Sunday’s race to teammate and championship rival Oscar Piastri.

Norris, much like Piastri in defence of Max Verstappen in the Saturday sprint race, looked powerless to fend off the Australian at the start of the Kemmel Straight.

Yet Norris, on a different strategy to Piastri, had the chance to close in on his rival late on with sturdier tyres, but admitted to a few errors which curtailed his ambitions.

"I had a couple of lock-ups in Turn 1, I went off in Pouhon, I had a big bump,” he told Sky Sports F1. I lost a couple of seconds there.

"At the same time, Oscar made some mistakes as well. It's just the conditions were tricky. I'm sure everyone makes mistakes like that. Especially for me, when I was trying to gain that time, I had to push. I couldn't just chill.

"And when you're playing on the edge like that, you're going to make some mistakes. But that's racing, that's life."

Rosberg, the 2016 F1 world champion on punditry duties for Sky in Spa, questioned whether seven-time champion Hamilton would have made similar mistakes when chasing down the race leader late on.

“That’s fair play,” Rosberg, who was teammates with Hamilton at Mercedes for four years, said in response to Norris’ comments.

“To listen to Lando's words there, that he was just doing qualifying lap after qualifying lap on the absolute edge, and then perhaps a couple of mistakes like that happen.

"I just question whether someone like Hamilton, if he also would have made three mistakes... I'm not sure.

"Pushing like crazy in a race like that, when there's “Hammer-time” - I'm not sure. I think they don't happen then, those three mistakes."

Norris now trails Piastri by 16 points heading into round 14 this weekend in Hungary, the final race before the F1 summer break.