Montoya: Norris too emotional deserved penalty points for that move

Montoya spoke candidly about the collision that saw Norris attempt a risky overtake on his McLaren teammate Piastri: “There were two big mistakes. Firstly, in qualifying. The Q3 thing is getting out of hand. He seems to have more speed than Oscar but can’t put it together when it counts.

“Lando is way too emotional. I really like him and I feel for him, but each time his emotions put him in a harder situation. He’s calm all weekend, then gets to Q3 and something clicks, he thinks ‘Now I cannot screw up.’ And when you think that, you usually do.”

Regarding the race-ending clash with Piastri, Montoya said Norris showed “unnecessary impatience” and that even if Piastri had left more space, the move was never going to work through a corner.

“He did all the hard work, caught him, got a chance to pass, and didn’t take advantage of it. You need to force Oscar into a mistake instead of making one yourself,” Montoya explained.

Montoya also questioned the FIA’s handling of Norris’ penalty, drawing comparisons to Max Verstappen’s past infractions: “Why didn’t Lando get at least a point on his licence? You give someone a five-second penalty for causing an incident, but no points? That’s what Max always complains about.”

He added: “Normally, anyone who does something stupid gets points on their licence. What Lando did was really stupid. He created a collision. You either penalise him or you don’t.”

Montoya speculated that George Russell, who has clashed with Verstappen before, might have tried to trigger a points-related penalty had they gone wheel-to-wheel in Montreal.

Despite the rising tension between the McLaren drivers, Montoya believes the team will continue to let Norris and Piastri race freely if Verstappen remains behind in the championship.

“As long as they’ve got the constructors’ in the bag and they will at this pace, there’s no reason to interfere,” he said. “If they start crashing and Max gets closer, they might step in. And if that happens, the guy who gets asked to stand down will be Lando.”

He believes McLaren will only impose team orders if the threat from Verstappen intensifies in the second half of the season.

Montoya said Piastri is the current favourite for the title but reminded observers that the picture could shift quickly: “Lando can win in Austria and Silverstone. He was much quicker than Oscar last year at Silverstone, even when Oscar won. But this is the moment they started doing team orders.

He added that Norris needs guidance: “The engineers should tell him, ‘You can get him, but be smart about it.’ Someone needs to remind Lando of the big picture. He’s not thinking about it. Oscar is,” he noted.

Turning to the ongoing tension between Red Bull and Mercedes, Montoya dismissed the off-track disputes as immature: “If George really stopped on purpose and Max passed because of it, they should look into it. But it’s like a kindergarten thing. Toto and Horner arguing over the radio? That was yapping to the teacher. It’s so much better now without all that.”

Montoya believes Verstappen drove conservatively in Canada due to the looming threat of a race ban, suggesting Red Bull likely issued strict internal instructions: “There’s no way Red Bull approached that weekend like business as usual. There must have been an intense conversation: Publicly, we race as usual, but Max, we can’t afford a sanction. Bring it home.”

At the end of the interview conducted by the media team at CasinoHawks, who offer the latest online casinos, Montoya concluded: “He had the pace to attack George but never did. Normally, Max is all out on Lap 1. He was emotionally very controlled this time.”