Is Norris’ openness on mental health a weakness or a superpower?

In the margin of the US Grand Prix weekend Red Bull’s Helmut Marko caught flak for pointing out what he called Lando Norris’ “mental weaknesses” as he weighed up the title chances of the McLaren driver against those of Max Verstappen in a recent interview.

“We know Norris has some mental weaknesses. I’ve read about some of the rituals he needs to do to perform well on race day,” Marko said, referring to Norris’ admission of feeling nervous and anxious on race weekends, with the pressure making him struggle to eat or drink before a race.

Marko was countered by McLaren CEO Zak Brown and team boss Andrea Stella, who said it was “like you destroy in a comment the work of 20 years. Max was addressed for swearing. For me, this is much more severe in terms of what a member of the F1 community has said rather than one bad word in the wrong place.”

While it is not Marko’s first comment that some would categorise as jurassic, it is debatable whether or not the Austrian was engaging in mind games or just being the straight shooter that he is. That attribute has made the 81-year-old a popular sounding board for F1’s media corps. Ask Marko a question and you get an honest answer, with little regard of how it is received or whether it is adhering to PR lines.

At times that honesty can be refreshing, but by dismissing Norris’ pre-race experiences as mentally weak, Marko has unknowingly still crossed a red line according to experts working in the field. Simon Fitchett, a mental coach and psychotherapist who was a former trainer in F1 for the likes of Sergio Perez, David Coulthard, Jerome D’Ambrosio, thought Marko’s comments were potentially harmful. Not to Norris, who likely brushed them off, but to other people facing mental health struggles around the world and aren’t as far in their journey to mitigate or overcome them.

“If we look at what Helmut Marko said, it’s disappointing when you hear that, especially when mental health is a massive issue worldwide at the moment with so many external factors going on,” Fitchett tells Motorsport.com.

“I thought those comments were below the belt. Sometimes when people try and pull someone or something else down, it’s often to pull themselves up, that’s a very common analogy. If you look across all sports, people take these little cheap shots at each other to try and destabilise or create a reaction or a distraction.”

To be fair to Red Bull…