McLaren driver Norris attracted attention in the aftermath of the race at the Hungaroring, where he had finished second to dominant victor Verstappen, as he knocked the Red Bull driver's trophy from the top step of the podium.
Norris slammed down his own celebratory bottle of sparkling wine onto the same area to get the bubbles flowing forcefully as he has done since he was a junior racer. Verstappen's trophy then fell to the podium's floor and was damaged at its base and top.
The trophy was later revealed to cost $45,000 and be the result of six months of hand-crafting effort from maker Herendi Porcelanmanufaktura Zrt.
Norris cheekily suggested the incident was Verstappen's fault for leaving the trophy "too close to the edge" of the podium when he faced the media soon after the Hungary race, but one week on in Spa he was keen to make amends for the incident and those comments.
"First of all, I do want to apologise for it," Norris said in the pre-event press conference at Spa, host of this weekend's Belgian GP and the final race before F1's summer break,
"I obviously had no intention of ever doing such a thing. And I know how much it means to the Hungarians and [is] part of their culture and so forth.
"Of course, I want to enjoy the time [celebrating on the podium], but it was never my intention to do such a thing.
"I did apologise to Max. I know I made a couple of jokes about it, which maybe I shouldn't [have]. But I do feel bad. If he did it to my trophy I'd be annoyed!
"I do apologise for it and obviously [to] the people that put the time and effort in everything into making it. I really didn't mean for it to happen. I'll make sure I'm a lot more careful next time on celebrating.
When asked if he was going to change the way he celebrates if he secures future podiums, Norris replied: "I'm gonna say no.
"There's no reason why I should, I'll just take a little bit more care with what I do. I'll just move the trophies aside and then continue."
Verstappen also revealed at Spa that the trophy is “not mine anyway, it’s the team’s”, as part of Red Bull’s policy of holding on to podium prizes and displaying them at its Milton Keynes factory, which was famously raided by burglars in 2014.
“We get a new one anyway so it’s alright,” Verstappen added when asked by Autosport if he planned to keep the broken trophy as a memento.
“I don’t know what they’re actually doing with it. I think it’s back at the factory at the moment.
“But apparently they take six months to make a new one so I guess for six months they can keep the broken one.”
