Lando Norris tipped for title glory after Oscar Piastri ‘screw-up’

Nigel Mansell believes Oscar Piastri's "screw-up" at the British Grand Prix means Lando Norris "has the momentum" to win the drivers' championship.

On a safety car restart at Silverstone, Piastri slammed on the brakes to assume control of the field, but did so too forcibly in the wet conditions, causing a concertina in the pack, with the stewards investigating him for driving erratically. 

For this, he was given a 10-second time penalty and two penalty points, but the time sanction meant he dropped behind team-mate Norris after serving it at his final pit-stop, with Norris going on to record his fourth win of the season.

In doing so, he reduced Piastri's lead in the drivers' standings to just eight points with the title fight set to be an all-McLaren affair.

Mansell, the 1992 world champion, believes that after Norris secured back-to-back wins for the first time in his career in Austria and Britain, he now has the momentum to land a first crown.

"I think they're going to have a great head-to-head battle all year, but I think Lando will probably come out on top," Mansell told Aceodds. 

"The team is doing such a great job with supplying both drivers with exactly the same equipment, and they are ahead of all the other teams. They don't have to worry about anybody; that's wonderful.

"I think Oscar will push Lando all the way, and look, if something goes wrong, there's a DNF with either of them, then someone's going to jump ahead on the points, then it's a question of whether the other car DNFs.

"Head-to-head, it's very, very close, but at the moment, the momentum is with Lando. You come off two wins, [Austria is a] great win, Silverstone's a brilliant win.

"Sadly, Oscar screwed up, only a little bit, and I sympathise with him, but the regulations are the regulations."