Norris defends McLaren's costly championship decision: 'Zero reasons'

As of now, Verstappen and Norris have a gap of 51 points between them in the Driver's standings. Their is also the same gap between their two teams, Red Bull and McLaren, in the Constructors. On Sunday, Norris scored 18 points, whilst Verstappen scored 10. Nevertheless, if the team had allowed Norris to win the race, he would have achieved an additional seven points. For the Brit though, this had nothing to do with McLaren's decisions: "That had nothing to do with last week. I shouldn't have led the race. That's the end of it," he said.

"I shouldn't have been in the lead. Oscar got me off the line. He controlled it well. That was it. So I shouldn't have led the race, and we should never have had the perception of the team not biassing towards Lando. If Oscar was leading the whole race, there's absolutely zero reason why they should ask him to suddenly let me pass," the Brit explained.

Is Norris McLaren's number one driver?

Norris has been with the team since he made his debut in F1 in 2019. However, his teammate, is only in his second season with them. With both drivers performing strongly this season, with at least one of them featuring on the podium since the Chinese Grand Prix, questions have been raised as to whether Norris is the lead driver or not. If Norris wishes to beat Verstappen in the championship, he will need to be scoring as many points as he can.

However, he is not aware of when the team could make the decision to prioritise him over his Australian teammate. "I don't know when the point is - if I'm 10 points behind, 15 points behind, whatever. At what point then do you go, can you help out a bit more? Can you do this? I don't know when that point is and that's not my decision," the Brit concluded.