Nico Rosberg ‘baffled’ by Lando Norris after mistakes in Singapore GP victory

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Louise Thomas

Editor

Nico Rosberg says he was “baffled” by Lando Norris’ mistakes which almost cost him victory at the Singapore Grand Prix.

Norris won by a comfortable 20-second margin to Max Verstappen at the Marina Bay Street Circuit but almost undid all his hard work with three careless errors.

The McLaren driver clipped one of the barriers before his first pit stop, not sustaining any major damage, bumped the wall with his right-tear tyre and ran wide while overtaking a backmarker.

Norris did go on to claim his third F1 win, narrowing the deficit to Verstappen in the world championship to 52 points, but 2016 F1 world champion Nico Rosberg was unimpressed by the 24-year-old’s mistakes.

"It kind of baffled me a little bit what was going on there because he hit the wall twice,” Rosberg told the Sky Sports F1 podcast.

"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.

“So, there’s three moments here and that’s so strange.

"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.”

Norris is looking to chase down Verstappen and claim a first world title with six races and three sprint races left.

F1 returns after a four-week break with the United States Grand Prix in Austin on 18-20 October.