In our exclusive interview, F1 analyst Mark Gallagher shares his thoughts on the title race between the two McLaren drivers and what the future holds for Ferrari's Lewis Hamilton.
F1 analyst Mark Gallagher spoke to Betway to analyse the ongoing title race between McLaren duo Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris, who are the two frontrunners in the Formula 1 betting odds.
Gallagher believes that Piastri is the favourite to win a maiden world title and suggests that Norris’s seventh-place finish in Baku could come back to haunt him, with only seven races remaining.
In addition, Gallagher questioned whether Lewis Hamilton can still produce the kind of performances that previously won him seven world titles, as the Brit stands on the verge of becoming the first Ferrari driver since 2014 to go an entire F1 season without a podium finish.
Is Lando or Oscar feeling the pressure as they both close in on the chance of winning a maiden Driver’s Championship?
It’s fascinating. If you think that Lando had a car failure and has had one technical issue which has led to a DNF and is now exactly one race win behind Oscar Piastri in the championship at 25 points. Lando can rightfully feel aggrieved.
Lando has done a very good job. He has made some errors, but they have been relatively far and few between, and he has still had an amazing season. The technical issue has had an impact on his points tally. I would doubt Lando is nervous or any more nervous than Oscar.
These guys are hard-battled racing drivers. They know how to handle pressure, so I think what is quite extraordinary is that they have seen a technical failure with Lando and then the team has had quite a catastrophic weekend in Baku with Oscar uncharacteristically sticking the car into the barrier and making a few mistakes over the weekend.
Then for Lando to not win or even get on the podium (was a shock). If ever there was a weekend that Lando needed to address the misfortune of the engine failure it was in Baku, but he didn’t get the result.
Oscar must be feeling that he really got away with that after the accident which could have had disastrous consequences in the championship. But Lando didn’t pick up enough points either so it’s game on with seven races to go and it really will be fascinating.
Who is favourite to win the title?
I go with Oscar because I am a believer that if you look at the general trend over this season, it has been very slightly in Oscar’s favour in terms of fewer errors, and he has also been more fortunate not to have that technical failure. A lot of great world champions have both the speed and a habit of becoming more fortunate.
I don’t like to say the word luck. I don’t think there’s much about it that is luck because you make your own good fortune, but Oscar has the balance slightly in his favour and he just needs to keep on doing what he’s doing. I have no doubt that Lando will win more races, but the points advantage Oscar has is going to pay dividends.
Lewis Hamilton is on course to become the first Ferrari driver since 2014 to not get a podium finish in a season, what do you make of this?
It’s been underwhelming in terms of the car’s performance. The second thing is, it was always going to be the case when Lewis arrived in Ferrari that he would find two things. The first is that he would start to understand why Ferrari have not won a World Championship in 18 years.
He would also find out that this is a team that has very much been built around Charles Leclerc in recent years. Lewis joining Charles’ team was a little bit like other drivers joining Lewis at Mercedes in his heyday.
The dynamics of the team is very interesting when you have an established number one driver which Charles has been. You put those things together and that may contribute towards Lewis’ disappointment this year.
Hamilton hasn’t been able to do what he wants to do and get the most out of the car. He also knows the car doesn’t have it in it to win those races.
Is there any truth of a decline in Lewis Hamilton?
There has been a degree of underperformance which he’s acknowledged at times and it’s hard to know what exactly to put that down to apart from the fact Lewis is now 40 and he is older.
At the moment, Mika Hakkinen and David Coulthard are doing a tour in the UK and were asked in Nottingham by the audience about Lewis’ form this year. I think Mika’s comments were really interesting.
He said no matter how good you are, if you get to a point in your career where you start to sense that the performance is not quite there, or start questioning your own performance never mind other people questioning it, Mika said you have to make a decision.
He spoke about the decision to retire from F1 himself at 33 years old. Lewis is seven years older and Mika thinks for what Lewis has achieved and like Fernando Alonso, to do it for so long is incredible.
With all of those things added together, Ferrari is Ferrari, and it has been Charles’ team. Lewis is unquestionably towards the end of his career and there is a little bit of concern that the performance is no longer available the way that it was 10 years ago.
