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.
“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.
Asked what he would have done differently, Norris said: “Just let him pass straight away. It's such a stupid thing that I didn't, because we're free to race.
“I could have just let him pass, still tried to overtake and to race him. It sounds so simple now, but it's not something that went through my head at the time.
“It’s such a simple thing like that. You know, I could have done it, but I was just in a good rhythm, and things were going well at the time. So I questioned the team a few times.
“I knew from as soon as he they boxed me before him, that I was going to have to let him go. I was a bit silly, and didn't think of letting him go earlier.”
While Norris questioned the team order request over the team radio during increasingly emotional messages between the pitwall and the car, he says there was never a moment in his head when he considered ignoring the request.
“It was always clear I always knew that I had to let him go,” he said. “But the longer I waited, just because it didn't matter if I let him go straight away or at the end, the more people questioned whether I would have done it or not.
“A lot of people think that I wouldn't have done it, but I knew I had to, so that made no difference.”
