Lando Norris has admitted he is not “too proud” of how his antics in the Hungarian Grand Prix overshadowed team-mate Oscar Piastri’s maiden Formula 1 win.
The Briton felt that his decision to delay in following through on a team order to let Piastri through to take the lead, having been moved to the front through a strategic call around pitstop timings, had needlessly stirred up drama.
While he insists there was never any doubt that he would concede the lead, and at the time felt that it made no difference if he left it late to do it, he has since come to realise the negative impact it made.
Speaking ahead of the Belgian Grand Prix, Norris expressed some regret about how things had been handled – and reckoned there was room for improvement from both himself and McLaren about how situations like that can be dealt with in the future.
“Could it have been handled slightly differently from both a team side and from a personal side? Yeah, absolutely,” admitted Norris. “I think we would not be having this conversation now in some ways.
“Whether people on the outside think and kind of come up with their own stories of what happened, and what I would have done and wouldn’t have done, that kind of thing, I don’t mind about that.
“But it’s the things that I could have done: the fact that I kind of clouded over Oscar’s first race win in F1 is something I’ve not felt too proud about.
Lando Norris, McLaren F1 Team, 2nd position, Oscar Piastri, McLaren F1 Team, 1st position, Andrea Stella, Team Principal, McLaren F1 Team, the McLaren team celebrate victory after the race
Photo by: Lubomir Asenov / Motorsport Images
“The fact we had a 1-2, and that was barely a headline after the race. The fact we had a 1-2 and nothing was really spoken about it from that side. Yeah, that’s the bits I felt worse about.
“But we’ve discussed it, we have spoken about it. Both sides could have done things a little bit better and a little bit differently. It’s almost not good that we had it, but it’s a good moment that we’ve had it, we’ve learned from it, and hopefully it’s done better next time.”
Norris says that on reflection he should have let Piastri through the instant that the pitwall mentioned it needed to be done – because then he would have had the chance to fight back for the lead.
Instead, by waiting in the way that he did until just two laps from the chequered flag, it meant the win was definitely gone.
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