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Laurence Edmondson, F1 Editor
SPA-FRANCORCHAMPS, Belgium — Lando Norris said he was “not proud” that McLaren’s team orders controversy at the end of the Hungarian Grand Prix overshadowed teammate Oscar Piastri’s first win.
With the two McLaren drivers cruising towards a 1-2 victory last weekend, the team’s pit wall decided to pit Norris first to minimise any potential threat from Lewis Hamilton in third place.
In doing so, Norris’ fresh tyre advantage saw Piastri emerge behind him when he made his own pit stop two laps later, with McLaren then ordering Norris to give the lead back.
It took 15 laps, interspersed with increasingly tense radio messages, for Norris to slow down and let Piastri past, although he later claimed he always intended to hand the position back.
Reflecting on the final laps of the Hungarian Grand Prix ahead of this weekend’s round in Belgium, Norris said: “Could it have been handled slightly differently from both a team side and a personal side? Yes. Yeah, absolutely. And I think we wouldn’t be having this conversation now in some ways.
“Whether people on the outside 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. The fact that I kind of clouded over Oscar’s first race win in Formula One 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 from that side, yeah, that’s the kind of thing I felt worse about.
“Apart from that, we discussed it, we’ve spoken about it, both sides could have done things a bit better and a little bit differently. It’s almost not good that we had it, but a good moment that we’ve had it, we’ve learned from it, and hopefully it’s done better next time.”
Asked what he would do differently, Norris said he should have given the position back immediately to reset the race between the teammates as soon as possible.
“[I should have] just let him past straight away,” Norris said. “Such a stupid thing that I didn’t, because we’re free to race. I could have just let him past and still tried to overtake and to race him.
“Sounds so simple now, but it’s not something that went through my head at the time. Such a simple thing like that, you know, I could have done.
“But I was just in a good rhythm, and things were going well at the time. I questioned it at the time, questioned the team a few times. But I knew from as soon as they boxed me ahead of him, or before him, that I was going to have to let him go. I was a bit silly and didn’t let him go earlier.”
He added: “I probably wasn’t thinking of the right things at the time or what they, there was no, as soon as they basically said let him past now, I let him past straightaway. It was never a fact of was I ignoring or not listening or these kinds of things. It was always clear what I wanted to do and needed to do. I just let it go on a little bit too long.”
Piastri said he understood Norris’ desire to hold on to the lead but was surprised his teammate took as long as he did to relinquish the position.
“I mean yes and no — I wasn’t surprised because he’s a racing driver winning an F1 race,” Piastri said. “It’s only natural to want to do that and give yourself every opportunity.
“Maybe it went on for a bit longer than I expected it to. I think that’s also something we need to discuss, whether there would have been more opportunities to race each other if things had been done a bit differently.
“We discuss a lot of things as a team, but you can’t plan for every single scenario. This one admittedly had some nuances to it that meant we were sort of in an unprecedented position before the race.
“I’m not surprised at all that he wanted to keep the lead of the race, and I think it’s only natural.”