Did Norris really "throw away" a "golden opportunity" to get back in the F1 title race?

The media story that the Azerbaijan Grand Prix was a missed chance for Lando Norris is founded on a false assumption.

After the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, most mainstream media outlets agreed that Lando Norris had missed a great chance to catch McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri in the drivers' title by running to seventh place without doing anything useful.

But when you look at the facts, it wasn't so clear-cut.

It is clear that six points for seventh place does not equal the net gain over Piastri that a win would have delivered. But this is based on the idea that Norris should have won when Piastri wasn't there, and he missed out on that chance.