Norris finished second behind McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri after a controversial final stanza to the race.

A strategic decision on the team’s part gave Norris track position as it defended from Lewis Hamilton in third.

With Piastri having led much of the race, the call was made to reverse the positions.

That wasn’t well received by Norris at the time, who dallied over moving aside for this team-mate – behaviour he now regrets.

“Could it have been handled slightly differently from both a team side and a personal side? Yes,” Norris admitted.

“The things that I could have done [differently], the fact that I kind of clouded over Oscar’s first race win in Formula 1 is something I’ve not felt too proud about.

“The fact we had a one-two and nothing was really spoken about from that side, that’s the kind of thing I felt worse about.”

Norris was pitted on Lap 45 with Piastri called in two laps later, giving the former track position which he only gave back at the start of Lap 68.

Upon reflection, Norris understands that delay is what created the waves that overshadowed the result for both Piastri and the team.

Rather than delaying the inevitable – and Norris insists he always intended to allow his team-mate through – he should have made the change almost immediately.

“Such a stupid thing that I didn’t, because we’re free to race,” he noted.

“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.

“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.”

In the wake of the event, some have called for Norris to be prioritised over Piastri given their respective drivers’ championship positions.

The former sits second, 76 points from championship-leader Max Verstappen, while Piastri is a further 40 points back.

By swapping the two cars, McLaren effectively cost Norris seven championship points, that could be valuable at the end of the year.

“That had nothing to do with last week,” Norris argued.

“I shouldn’t have led the race. That’s the end of it. I shouldn’t have been in the lead.

“Oscar got me off the line, he controlled it well. That was it.

“I shouldn’t have led the race, and people shouldn’t have then had the perception of ‘Ah, the team are not biasing towards Lando’.

“If Oscar was leading the whole race, there’s absolutely zero reason for them to ask him to suddenly let me past.”

It’s possible that position may change in future should the championship battle tighten up.

Norris, however, suggests it’s too early to make that decision now.

“If you’re thinking of it from a championship point of view. I don’t know when the point is of like, if I’m 10 points behind, 15 points behind, whatever,” he reasoned.

“At what point then do you go, ‘Can you help out a bit more, can you do this or do that’?

“I don’t know when that point is, and that’s not my decision.

“I still need to earn it, go out there and drive quicker than everyone,” he added of having the team prioritise his title ambitions.

“I don’t know why is now the point that we would have a bias of one over the other.

“We have never had the bias in the team; it might have looked like it from the outside and that happens a lot now, but …

“We are only halfway through, and we have a hell of a long way to go.

“Maybe further down the line, but that time is to be decided.”

Norris and Piastri travelled back from Hungary together, spending the time playing Monopoly with Alex Albon and eating McDonald’s.