Norris needs to get his head straight to hit pole position

On the McLaren pit wall, situated at the end of the home straight in Montreal, they'd have literally felt the shudders and vibrations.

- KIERAN JACKSON

The moment their two drivers and championship contenders collided and the moment the ill-titled "papaya rules" first creaked, in a manner only a crash at 200mph can do.

The post-mortem was actually very prompt and concise. Oscar Piastri, to the relief of the entire team, was unimpacted. He finished fourth, to conclude a damage limitation weekend. Team principal Andrea Stella put the incident simply down to a "miscalculation". And Lando Norris, in a matter of seconds, took full blame for driving up the back of his teammate, cutting short his race and costing him 10 points in the title fight.

To an extent, Norris should be applauded for how rapidly he took full accountability for a crash he labelled as "stupid". The Briton was in the wrong, eyeing a non-existent gap down the inside, with a collision unavoidable. He immediately apologised to Piastri in the media pen. The antithesis of Max Verstappen, there was no intra-team feud to see here. All is well.

Except, all is not well. With Norris, in particular. Why? Well, the Bristolian has completely lost his mojo.

If this were an isolated incident, it'd be easier to move on. But the 25-year-old has, with two anomalies, endured a torrid first three months of the season. A season in which he started out as the favourite, armed with the fastest car. And if he can't find an antidote quickly, a maiden world title looks set to run away from him, both on the track and on the leaderboard.

The mistakes have been plentiful. Errors on his final laps in Q3, the top-10 grid-setting phase of qualifying, have been an all too common occurrence, costing him pole positions in China, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. He inexplicably crashed out in Jeddah, forcing a recovery drive the next day from 10th to fourth.