Lando Norris issues response to breaking Max Verstappen’s trophy in Hungary

Lando Norris apologised for breaking Max Verstappen’s Hungary trophy as it was an accident and will be more careful in future.

With Verstappen winning the Hungarian Grand Prix and Norris finishing P2, a repeat of the top two from Silverstone in the prior round, Norris’ trademark bottle celebration went wrong on the podium as it caused Verstappen’s trophy to fall off the top step and smash.

Additional reporting by Sam Cooper and Thomas Maher

Both drivers saw the funny side of it, but that was not the case for everyone, with Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko for example saying he will give Verstappen a lesson in the significance of porcelain, which the trophy was made from, in Hungarian culture.

Lando Norris to learn from the incident

Norris made it clear that he understands the cultural significance behind the trophy and admits he probably should not have made jokes about the incident, though stressed it was an accident.

“I mean, first of all, I do want to apologise for it,” he told media including PlanetF1.com ahead of the Belgian Grand Prix. “I obviously had no intention in ever doing such a thing.

“And I know how much it means to the Hungarians and is part of their culture and so forth.

“So yeah, of course I want to enjoy the time but it was never my intention to do such thing and I did apologise to Max, I know I’ve made a couple of jokes about it, which maybe I shouldn’t, but I do feel bad for…if he did it to my trophy I’d be annoyed.

“I do apologise for it and and obviously the people who put the time and effort into making it, I really didn’t mean for it to happen, so I’ll make sure I’m a lot more careful next time on celebrating.”

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That being said, when Norris is on the podium in Formula 1 once again, which he will hope comes in Belgium to make it a hat-trick, he does not plan on changing the way he celebrates, only factoring more caution into it.

Asked if he will alter his celebrations, Norris replied: “I would say no. I mean, there’s no reason why I should.

“I’ll just take a little bit more care obviously what I do, but yeah, I’ll just move the trophies aside and then continue.”

Norris goes into the Belgian GP sitting P8 in the Drivers’ standings, 20 points behind Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc.

Read next: ‘Lewis Hamilton never in sync with Mercedes car like Max Verstappen is at Red Bull’