Steiner brands Norris 'lucky' after 'weird' blunder

Lando Norris has been judged as "lucky" by former Haas team principal Guenther Steiner after surviving multiple "weird" wall brushes during the Singapore Grand Prix. 

Norris won at the Marina Bay Circuit recently in dominant fashion, reducing Max Verstappen's lead in the F1 drivers' championship to 52 points. 

However, the McLaren driver was fortunate to even finish after surviving several brushes with walls around the circuit.

He only collected very minor front wing damage, to the relief of Norris and the Woking-based team. 

Steiner highlighted how lucky the title contender was, by pointing out that Kevin Magnussen sustained a puncture after his first strike with the wall on the outside of Turn 5.

"I could say that maybe he was managing the race," Steiner said on the Red Flags Podcast. "Did he lose concentration? Did he try to do something? I don't know, but it's weird.

"And as I said, it wasn't once, he got lucky a few times. Look at Magnussen, he does it once and got a puncture. It's true, he's running second last and hits the wall, gets a puncture.

"The other one is leading the race by half a minute, hits the wall three times, doesn't get anything, keeps on going. So that says a lot to you about how life is sometimes treating you."

The mistakes made by Norris were not down to a lack of focus whilst leading in Steiner's opinion, but more to do with the 24-year-old trying to be perfect. 

"I just think maybe, and I'm speculating here, I wouldn't say that he wasn't focused," added Steiner. "It's just when you manage, you think all other things instead of, 'Okay, I have nothing to lose'.

"And you try to be perfect and then make these small mistakes. But it all ended well for him, so he got lucky."