Lando retired from Dutch Grand Prix 2025 due to an oil leak
Oscar Piastri leads Norris by 34 points in the championship
Norris aims to recover points in remaining nine races
A victory at Italian Grand Prix would mark McLaren's 13th win of 2025
Lando Norris will not dwell on what his retirement from last week's Dutch Grand Prix has done to his Formula One title hopes, insisting he has plenty of time to recover.
Norris was only seven laps away from a second-placed finish at Zandvoort, but an oil leak – resulting from the failure of a part of the car's chassis – derailed him.
With Piastri going on to claim his seventh win of the season, Norris now trails his McLaren team-mate by 34 points in the drivers' championship standings.
Norris and Piastri will compete in their 63rd race as team-mates at this weekend's Italian Grand Prix, the 15th-most of any pairing in F1 history.
With nine races of the season remaining, Norris expects several more twists and turns in his battle with Piastri.
"There are still plenty of races to try and make up for the points I lost last weekend. I've got to look at it that way, so that's the way I'll be doing it," Norris told reporters.
"I mean, every weekend I'm trying to win; I don't need to change that. If there are those situations where we have to race, of course no one is going to want to make it easier for one another, whether it's Oscar for me or me for Oscar.
"He's still my team-mate, at the end of the day. We still have to respect each other a lot, but we always race each other well and on the limit, and that's how we will continue to be."
Before last week's race, McLaren had not had a mechanical retirement since the 2023 Bahrain Grand Prix – 60 races ago.
Norris revealed that McLaren team principal Andrea Stella and chief executive Zak Brown had both apologised for the MCL39 failing him, but he does not hold anyone responsible.
"It's not Andrea's fault, it's not Zak's fault. I think it was 60 races without a technical failure, without any issues. I think that's a record for ourselves. It's something we're pretty proud about," Norris reflected.
"For that to happen now, that's just unlucky. It wasn't a bad job by anyone. It was just various things coming together and being unlucky.
"Andrea and Zak apologised because they feel like it's on their behalf to apologise, but it's not their fault. They apologised because they feel like they have let me down, the same as I apologise when I feel like I let them down.
"Otherwise, it's life. You just can't do anything about it. I can only look ahead to the next few races and try to do more than I've ever done."
Should either Norris or Piastri triumph at Monza, McLaren will have their 13th victory of 2025, surpassing the 12 they achieved with Alain Prost and Niki Lauda driving in 1984.
It would be their second-most in a single season, having achieved 15 with Prost and Ayrton Senna in 1988.
