McLaren driver Norris qualified a season-best third in Spain, but his hopes of a points finish were curtailed on the first lap when he clashed with Hamilton's Mercedes at Turn 2 and had to pit at the end of the opening tour.
Hamilton escaped without significant damage and went on to finish second.
Speaking after he was eventually classified 17th, Norris stressed that even before the contact he expected points would be hard to come by due to McLaren's ongoing struggles for pace and with several drivers starting out of position further down the field.
Mercedes driver George Russell recovered from 12th to finish third, while Sergio Perez's Red Bull secured fourth from 11th on the grid.
Norris said: "The pace was as expected today, which was bad. I don't think we expected anything else really.
"Our aim was to maybe finish in the points, but we weren't expecting anything like yesterday."
Asked whether points would have been possible without the impact with Hamilton, Norris replied: "Probably not, no."
He then added: "Because we're slow, we have been all year. I don't know, there's nothing else to say.
"Yesterday was a special day. Some good teams struggled a lot and some of the worse teams did a better job, so it was just an odd day, people making a lot of mistakes and we just capitalised on that.
Source: Autosport