Oscar Piastri claimed his first Formula 1 grand prix win ahead of his McLaren team-mate following a tense conclusion to the Hungarian GP.
Piastri gained the race lead at the start before strategy saw Norris undercut him at the second round of stops.
From there, Norris was reluctant to allowed his team-mate back through, despite continued requests from the pit wall.
“Things are always going to go through your mind because, you know… You’ve got to be selfish in this sport at times. You’ve got to think of yourself,” Norris said.
“That’s priority number one, is think of yourself.
“I’m also a team player, so my mind was going pretty crazy at the time.
Secure your spot today.
“I know what we’ve done in the past between Oscar and myself. He’s helped me plenty of times…
“I think this is a different situation. This is not someone helping one another. I was put into a position, and we were undoing that position change.”
The complication for Norris was the championship challenge he’s looking to mount against Max Verstappen.
With a win worth 25 points versus 18 for second, handing the place back to Piastri was about more than just the trophy at the end of the race.
“I know a lot of people are going to say, like, the gap between me and Max is pretty big, 60, 70, 80 points or something,” Norris explained.
“You know, if Red Bull and Max make the mistakes like they did today and continue to do that, and as a team we continue to improve and have weekends like we’ve had this weekend, we can turn it around.
“And it’s still optimistic. It’s still a big goal to say, yeah, we can close 70 points and as a driver, I can close 70 points in half a season.
“And then when you’re thinking of the seven or six points that I give away, then… It crosses your mind for sure.
“So it was not easy, but I also understood the situation I was in and I was quite confident always by the last lap I would have done it.”
Norris found himself out front after he was boxed to cover off the undercut threat posted by Lewis Hamilton.
It saw him in the lane on Lap 45, two laps earlier than Piastri, and allowed him to leapfrog the Australian in the process.
“It’s not my fault that I was leading the race in a way,” Norris reasoned.
“The team should have just boxed Oscar first and we wouldn’t even be having this discussion.
“As a team, maybe we could have done things slightly differently and I’m sure we’ll talk about it.”
Norris ultimately reconciled his internal conflict over team orders by reasoning that Piastri deserved the win.
“I think there’s just a difference of simply just deserving to win a race and not deserving to win,” Norris said of team orders.
“I didn’t deserve to win the race today. Simple as that.
“The fact I was in that position was incorrect. I think that was a mistake from us as a team. I shouldn’t have been in this position. And it was a strategic way to just play our race.
“It gave me hope and it gave me that position of, ‘oh, I’m here now’. But I shouldn’t have been there in the first place.
“I’m not going to talk about it because I shouldn’t have been there. I didn’t deserve to win. End of story from that side.”
But while acknowledging he didn’t deserve to win, he was also critical of being put in a position where he could influence Piastri’s ability to take victory.
“It’s not because strategically something’s really happened and you’re kind of just letting someone pass or something’s going that way it’s that I shouldn’t have been in that position in the first place,” he reasoned.
“I shouldn’t have been given that hope of ‘I’m here, I’m leading a race’.
“So I don’t think it’s a fair thing.
“Of course we’re going to discuss it and there’s going to be times maybe in the future where things are like that. But if Oscar’s led the whole race, I don’t want him just to…
“It’s not fair, and I don’t think that’s how it should work, that he should just let me pass for me to win because I’m fighting for a championship,” he added.
“Maybe I’ll ask Oscar, maybe he will, maybe he’d let me pass, but today was his, and that should be it.
“It wasn’t my race today. He drove better, and he got a good start, and that was that.”
Piastri is the fifth Australian to have won a world championship grand prix, joining luminaries such as Sir Jack Brabham, Alan Jones, Mark Webber, and Daniel Ricciardo.
He remains fifth in the drivers’ championship, now five points behind Carlos Sainz for fourth.
Meanwhile, Norris is second, 76 points back from championship leader Max Verstappen.
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