Norris had started from the front after a brilliant showing in Friday’s wet qualifying session, but it all went wrong at Turn 1 of the sprint race after he came off worse in a side-by-side tussle with Lewis Hamilton.
Having lost ground away from the grid, he found himself on the dirt on the outside of the long right- hand first corner. And, after instantly losing grip, he ran wide and dropped down the order.
While he was able to recover and finished sixth, Norris clearly felt he should have done better.
Speaking over the team radio after the chequered flag, Norris said: “Yeah, I f***** up Turn 1, my bad. I just completely lost the car, so apologies. Should have scored some more points than that.”
But McLaren boss Andrea Stella moved quickly to say that rather than the driver apologising, it was the team that should be saying sorry for not giving him a car that was better able to fight for wins.
“Certainly he doesn't need to apologise because we need his apologies [for the car],” Stella told Sky Sports F1.
“He knows that he could have done better, but we appreciate the maximum effort and we work as a team. And also this just gives a sense of the kind of person he is.
Source: Autosport