Lando Norris said he could not help but laugh at fans who booed him after his dominant win at the Mexican Grand Prix.
Norris took a one-point lead at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez with a comprehensive victory, which saw him lead every lap from pole position. It moved him above McLaren teammate and title rival Oscar Piastri for the first time since late April.
While being interviewed in the old baseball stadium which overlooks the final sequence of corners, a sizeable section of the crowd booed him as he was introduced. Norris shrugged off the reaction.
“That’s sport sometimes,” he said in the press conference for the top three finishers on Sunday evening. “I don’t know why. I was kind of laughing … I think it makes it more entertaining for me.
“Of course you don’t want it, I’d prefer if people cheered for me. I just concentrate on doing my thing, it was the same in Monza and a few other places,” he added.
A local journalist then asked the next question, suggesting to Norris that the booing was down to the outside perception that McLaren has unfairly favoured him in the head-to-head fight with Piastri this year.
The journalist referenced the three points Piastri lost to Norris at the Italian Grand Prix when he obeyed a team order to move over after a slow pit-stop for Norris, something which even Max Verstappen found amusing at the time when was told about it on the radio during the race.
“If they want to think that they certainly have the right to, they can think whatever they want,” Norris said in reply to the suggestion. “I guess from us as a team of course we try and do things fairly. That was the comment we made back then. [It was] the same two years ago in Budapest when I could have won the race and not let Oscar back through and let him win the race … [but] he deserved to win.
“It was no different to that really, it was an incorrect decision that we made as a team to box him first. If you want to have the three points they can, but, you know, they have the right to think whatever they want.
“But yeah, Oscar deserved to win last year in Budapest and I deserved to be head in Monza, simply said.”
Norris was the preseason favourite coming into the season. He now leads the championship with four races and one sprint race left to run.
