McLaren’s Lando Norris has clarified that his social media apology following the Portuguese Grand Prix was a follow up on a comment he made about Lewis Hamilton, rather than Lance Stroll.
After Hamilton won a record-breaking 92nd grand prix, Norris stated that the Mercedes driver is “in a car which should win every race. He has to beat one or two other drivers and that’s it.”
He also hit out at Stroll following their collision during the race, expressing the Canadian “doesn’t seem to learn” after Stroll was involved in a similar clash earlier in the weekend with Max Verstappen.
On Tuesday, Norris took to Twitter to apologise for “careless” comments, but has now asserted they were only for Hamilton, who he also privately messaged.
“They were more, the comments, about Lewis and him reaching 92 wins which I have a lot of respect for. I just didn’t choose the right words to put that into context,” Norris said.
“I apologised, but I also apologised to Lewis himself, I messaged him. I don’t know if he knew about it at the time, but I never mean to say something like that in a bad way or to put any bad light on him at all.
“I respect everything he’s done to achieve what he’s done, it’s incredible no matter what. Just the way I put it was not the way I wanted to put it across. I said what I said, I apologised and I just got to move on.”
The 20-year-old denies he was pushed by his peers to send out an apology, insisting he took it upon himself to do so.
“It was all done off my own back,” Norris said. “No one pressured me, it wasn’t even anything someone said.
“It wasn’t something that many people even noticed, but I woke up in the morning and I looked on social media and there was just a lot more bad comments than good about the things I 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.
“I made the decision in the morning to put up the tweet and just issue my apology and message Lewis at the same time to set things straight.”
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