Norris stands by McLaren in face of criticism: 'I disagree'

Lando Norris has insisted he stands by his McLaren team's decisions despite criticism over its strategy during Formula 1's Japanese Grand Prix.

The Briton finished second, ahead of teammate Oscar Piastri but behind Red Bull's Max Verstappen after starting behind the Dutchman on the front row of the grid.

With overtaking coming at a premium at Suzuka, Norris' only way through was in the pitstop phase but instead of under-or-overcutting his rival, the duo pitted on the same lap.

With questions asked over the decision making, Norris told media including GPBlog ahead of the Bahrain Grand Prix: "There's a lot of things in hindsight, nothing which came without risk, which was probably the biggest answer to things.

"It is very easy - even for me when I stepped out of the car and looked at things, I wasn't best pleased with how things looked and maybe what felt like our approach to the whole thing. But nothing was a guarantee.

"Nothing was a guarantee that I would have passed Max, nothing was a guarantee that the undercut would have been strong enough - I would have come out always in traffic and behind a car, so there was no guarantee for everything.

"So however much people want to talk and say things, say how bad of a job we did, I disagree and I stand always by our decisions as a team and I have a lot of trust and faith that we always have our best interests at heart."

Norris reveals McLaren's biggest question

Verstappen's victory has put the four-time champion just a single point behind Norris in the drivers' championship despite McLaren's dominant start to the campaign, and the Briton thinks that his team could review future risks.

"Would I review what level of risk we want to take in different scenarios? I think that is probably our bigger question after last weekend," he suggested.

"Would I be willing to take that risk of boxing behind more cars and go for the win? Then yes, but we still finished second and third, we still got more points in the constructors' and I still had a good result as a driver for points.

"But I did lose out to Max and he's my main competitor at the minute. But there was a lot of reviews, of course.

"We were not happy... we were happy because we had second and third - a great result as a team still. But could it have been better? Potentially and could we have potentially taken more risks and been more attacking as a team?

"But nothing came without risks of a potentially worse result. So I stand by, at the end of the day, our approach that weekend."