Lando Norris told to 'annihilate' Oscar Piastri in nothing-to-lose F1 title fight

Lando Norris has been urged to adopt a ruthless approach with Oscar Piastri after falling adrift of his McLaren team-mate in their F1 championship battle.

With nine races remaining, Norris now finds himself 34 points adrift of Piastri after incurring a chassis failure with seven laps remaining of Sunday's Dutch Grand Prix, forcing him into retirement when on course for a guaranteed second position behind the race-winning Australian.

It was a brutal blow to Norris' title hopes, and he now finds himself in a difficult position of playing catch-up against a driver who has been almost faultless this season, and unable to rely on a rival getting into the mix given McLaren's dominance this season.

Jacques Villeneuve, the 1997 champion, feels Norris now has no alternative but to adopt a cut-throat attitude in his scrap with Piastri.

"If you're Lando, he's like the underdog, a hunter, and that's always the position I preferred as well, because it makes you almost angry, aggressive," said Villeneuve, speaking on The F1 Show.

"You've got to go for it. It's fun, it's exciting. It can be frustrating, obviously, but you've just got to go for it. And you've got to annihilate your team-mate. You've got to show him who's the stronger, that you are there to eat him alive.

"You're coming from behind, and there's nowhere to run, no place to hide. That's a little bit the approach you have to have."

Norris to follow Hamilton's example?

Villeneuve also feels Norris has to adopt sneaky tactics to disrupt Piastri, or to at least drag others into their squabble to give him a chance, citing Lewis Hamilton's strategy with Nico Rosberg in their 2016 title-decider in Abu Dhabi.

Although Rosberg still came out on top, Norris has nothing to lose.

"In the race, you just have to hope someone gets in the middle of the fight, that it's not a one-two, but like a one-three, and you can catch more points," remarked Villeneuve.

"So what do you do? You slow down a bit so that someone can maybe get your team-mate if you're ahead. That kind of stuff we've seen. Lewis against Nico in the last race, he was driving slowly, hoping someone would get Nico. You have to start playing those games."

Reflecting on the situation from Piastri's position, Villeneuve feels he can be a little more cautious in his approach, even though the title is far from his reach just yet.

But given the points difference, and McLaren so dominant, Norris would have to score five successive one-twos over the next five races just to take the lead by a single point.

"Piestri, not much he can do," said Villeneuve. "He's not really in a position to take a big risk. He might accept a P2 because going for that P1 and risking a crash would give the championship to his team-mate, so that's a difficult position he's in.

"We've seen [Max] Verstappen in that position, and that's him, though. He never took the easy way out. He still went for the win and took the risks, and it worked for him.

"But that's the difficult decision that Piastri will have to make. Does he take the risk and still go for the win, which will increase his championship lead? Or does he massage his lead and not take that risk?"