The headlines headlines from the Hungarian Grand Prix were not of a McLaren one-two, nor of Oscar Piastri’s first victory in Formula One.
Instead, it was overshadowed by exchanges between Lando Norris and his race engineer Will Joseph, with the latter asking, then pleading and finally repeatedly ordering the Briton to hand the race lead back to Piastri.
Norris stubbornly defied team orders until the last few laps of the race, a move he said he later regretted.
On the eve of the last race before the summer break, at Spa, in Belgium, Norris said: “The fact that we had a one-two and that was barely a headline after the race, nothing was really spoken about it from that side, that’s the bit I felt worst about.
“But it’s the things that I could have done, the fact I clouded Oscar’s race win, his first win in F1, is something I’ve not felt too proud about.”
In the aftermath of last Sunday’s race, McLaren team principal Andrea Stella made it clear that no one was bigger than the team, Norris included, and that the collective team outweighed all else.
The British manufacturer has tried to give off the impression of a united front on arrival at Spa, where their hospitality suite, damaged by a fire at the Spanish Grand Prix, is back in full working order.
And Norris, the de facto leader of the team as the more established driver, insisted there are things he wished he could have done differently last week.
“Could it have been handled slightly differently from both a team side and from a personal side?” he said. “Yes, absolutely. We wouldn’t be having this conversation now in some ways.
“Whether people on the outside think and come up with their own stories of what happened and what I would have done and wouldn’t have done, I don’t mind about that.”
His other regret is that the two McLarens have been told they are free to race, Norris only told to give back the Piastri place after the Australian was unfairly undone by the team’s pit-stop strategy.
“It’s such a stupid thing that I didn’t [hand back the place immediately], because we’re free to race,” he said. “I could just let him pass and still try to race and overtake him. It sounds so simple now, but it’s not something that went through my head at the time.”
McLaren have proved themselves to consistently have the quickest car in recent weeks and will be confident of keeping Max Verstappen at bay once again with another one-two in Spa before the paddock packs up for the month-long summer break.
