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Lando Norris apologised to Lewis Hamilton directly for comments he felt did not respect Hamilton’s achievement of setting a new Formula 1 win record last weekend.
After the Portuguese Grand Prix, which was Hamilton’s 92 F1 victory, Norris said he was happy for Hamilton but that it “doesn’t mean anything to me really”, then added: “He’s in a car which should win every race basically. He has to beat one or two other drivers, that’s it.
“Fair play to him, he’s still doing the job he has to do.”
Norris apologised on social media on Tuesday this week but did not direct the apology to a specific driver, stating: “I’ve been stupid and careless with some things I’ve said lately in media and interviews, and haven’t shown the respect I should have to certain people.”
That was interpreted to mean Hamilton and potentially Lance Stroll, who Norris clashed with on-track, but Norris said on Friday ahead of Imola’s Emilia Romagna Grand Prix they were “more the comments about Lewis and him reaching his 92 wins, which I have a lot of respect for”.
The McLaren driver revealed that he messaged Hamilton directly to apologise even though he did not know if Hamilton was aware of what had been said.
“I just didn’t choose the right words to put it into context and I apologised, but I also apologised to Lewis himself – I messaged him,” said Norris.
“I never mean to say something like that in a bad way or put any bad light on him at all.
“I respect everything he’s done, to achieve what he’s done is incredible no matter what.
“It was just the way I put it was not the way I wanted to put it across so yeah, I said what I said, I apologised and I just want to move on.”
“I saw how it was going down and I felt bad because it’s not the person I am in any way to put shame on anyone” :: Lando Norris
Norris said the decision to apologise publicly was his own and “no one pressured me”.
He was spurred on when he noticed how badly his comments had gone down.
“I woke up in the morning and I looked on social media and there was a lot more bad comments than good about the things I said,” Norris said.
“I never mean any of it to be put in that way or taken out of context in a bad way, especially against Lewis.
“I saw how it was going down and I felt bad because it’s not the person I am in any way to put shame on anyone or not have the respect for such a driver.
“So, I made the decision in the morning to put up the tweet and just issue my apology and messaged Lewis at the same time just to set things straight.”
Norris has one of the biggest online profiles of any F1 driver, even though he is only in his second season. The 20-year-old is a prominent user of social media and has a big esports presence as well.
He is therefore one of F1’s most open drivers, and any backlash to divisive comments could prompt him to reconsider that position – but he says he will not gag himself, just think more carefully about what words he should use.
“Not everything I said I apologised for, more the specific wording of what I said” :: Lando Norris
Norris’s apology for swearing at Stroll over the team radio is an example of that, as he called Stroll a c**t during the grand prix then used the radio again at the end of the race to say sorry.
Asked by The Race how difficult it is to judge where the line is when trying to be open and honest in F1, Norris said: “Well it’s obviously not easy because I passed it twice, in my own opinion!”
“My first apology was more for the language I used more than anything, and not everything I said I apologised for but more the specific wording of what I said.
“It’s not easy, everything can get taken out of context in some way.
“And especially now in 2020, you have to be very careful with what you think and as much as I like voicing my own opinion, and that’s what I did in a lot of ways, I maybe just didn’t pick the right wording for for everything I said.
“But I still have my opinions. And some people are not going to like them. Some people are. And that’s just the world we live in.
“There’s a lot of ways that no matter what you say people can just take it into a bad context and publicise it in a way to make it look a lot worse than the way you meant it in the first place.
“You have to pick the right words and that’s something I obviously learned from last week.
“I probably will make a mistake at some point in the future and say the wrong thing again but I’ll never mean it and I’ll try and do the right thing.”
