Why Norris was booed on F1 Mexico GP podium

It is 6,100 miles from Monza to the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez as the crow flies, but the ripples from the events in the Italian Grand Prix have travelled far. Lando Norris was booed roundly by the crowd throughout the Mexico GP weekend, and not just on the sold-out race day.

The Foro Sol stadium section of this circuit has become one of the great cauldrons of motor racing. Cheers erupt from the crowd whenever a cars enter it, the wall of sound almost drowning the engine noise – except when the number 4 McLaren passed through, wherein the roar was replaced by the sound of several thousand arms folding in disapproval.

After taking pole position on Saturday, perhaps even more so after winning on race day, Norris was booed during his interviews and during the ceremonials. The man himself was unable to account for it.

“I don’t know why, to be honest,” he said in the post-race press conference, insulated from noises off. “And people can do what they want, they have the right to do it if they want to do it. So I think that’s sport sometimes.

“I don’t know why, I can’t stop laughing when I get booed. I think it makes it more entertaining for me. So yeah, they can keep doing it if they want.

“Of course, you don’t want it. I prefer if people cheered for me. But I don’t know – who knows. Like I said, I just concentrate on doing my things.

“It was the same in Monza and a few other places. So yeah, I don’t know why, I just can’t stop laughing.”

Although there has been some speculation in the paddock and online that Mexico is anti-Norris because of some disparaging comments he made about Sergio Perez during last year’s Qatar Grand Prix weekend (saying Max Verstappen didn’t have “a team-mate who could challenge him in any way”), the cause of the ire may be more recent.

Mexican motor racing magazine Fast Mag recently ran a poll asking its readers if Norris was being gifted the championship, based on McLaren’s order to Oscar Piastri to hand over position after Norris’s slow pitstop in Monza. 

McLaren’s so-called ‘papaya rules’ which cover the terms of engagement between the team’s two drivers have become a contentious issue. From McLaren’s perspective the point is to ensure equal treatment between Norris and Piastri while letting them race one another.

But while McLaren is labouring to be as objective as possible, the perception of its activities are always going to be subjective, particularly when the calls are invasive. When one driver outperforms the other in qualifying, for instance, inevitably there will be those who interpret this as further proof of favouritism. If the team stages an intervention on track to swap positions if it believes a wrong must be righted – as at Monza, where Norris lost position to Piastri as a result of a slow pitstop – then its position is a more difficult ‘sell’ to the general public.

Granted, a magazine poll is a small sample size but it still provides a steer towards public opinion here in Mexico, where the swapping of positions in Monza has played poorly.

In the post-race press conference, Fast Mag writer Carlos Jalife asked Norris if he would give back the extra three world championship points he earned as a result of the position swap in Monza, that being what the results of the reader poll suggested might quell the booing.

Lando Norris, McLaren

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / LAT Images via Getty Images

“If they want to think that they certainly have the right to, they can think whatever they want,” said Norris. “I guess, from us as a team, of course, we try and do things fairly.

“That was the comments we made back then. The same with two years ago in Budapest, when I could have won the race and not let Oscar back through and let him win the race he deserved to win. It was no difference to that, really.

“And, to be honest, if you want to have the three points, they can. They have the right to think whatever they want.

“But yeah, like Oscar deserved to win in Budapest, I deserved to be ahead in Monza. Simple as that.”

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– The Autosport.com Team