Hamilton: Norris lacked patience but will ‘live and learn’ from clash

The British duo made contact as they diced for position while making their way through Barcelona’s opening sequence of corners at the start of Sunday’s race.

Hamilton emerged from Turn 2 unscathed but Norris, who started one place ahead of the Mercedes driver in third, picked up front-wing damage that forced him to make an unscheduled pit stop.

The incident effectively ruined Norris’ race, with the McLaren driver going on to finish a lowly 17th. 

And seven-time world champion Hamilton felt Norris would have picked up a better result had he been more “patient”. 

“I just felt a big hit from behind,” explained Hamilton, who equalled his best result of the season by finishing second. 

“But obviously Max [Verstappen] and Carlos [Sainz] went quite wide and deep into Turn 1, and they were coming back across, and I basically got in the wake so I had to be patient and then I got a hit from behind.

“I think it was a shame for Lando because he did such an amazing job yesterday, it was great to see McLaren up there on the second row.

“I think today, probably even if he was ahead of me going into the corner, we would’ve overtaken him, because we had slightly more pace, I would say, probably race-trim-wise.

“So it ended up not being a great result for him. But I think if he was just a little bit more patient today he would’ve had probably a better result. But we live and we learn.”

Offering his view of the collision, Norris reckoned he simply got “a bit unlucky”. 

“I didn’t see the other car because the Red Bull went off ahead of me,” Norris told Sky. 

“And because of that I thought there would be normal pace around Turn 2 – and everyone checked up massively.

“Just a misjudgement from my part.

“Maybe I could’ve fought Lewis more around Turn 1 but at the same time he was pretty committed and I probably would’ve ended up off the track. Maybe it would’ve been a safer option just to commit to going off.

“But I think it was just a bit unlucky. There was a little bit of a gap on the inside, and all of a sudden you hit the brakes harder than you ever would at Turn 2. Nothing more than that. It happens. But it didn’t change our day.”