Lando Norris has never been one to hold back, and after the opening race of the 2026 Formula 1 season in Australia, the British driver was as candid as ever. Following his hard-hitting comments after qualifying, Lando Norris continued to criticize the new era of F1 cars, particularly focusing on the unpredictable speed differentials during overtakes. Drivers often have to wait for rivals to deplete their battery before passing, even though the FIA has imposed speed limits for safety.
After finishing fifth at Albert Park, Lando Norris’s frustration was clear. The McLaren driver, hampered by a lack of hybrid efficiency compared to Mercedes, had to adopt different techniques to recover energy, which significantly affected how he could push the car. Despite the challenging weekend, his comments reflect concerns shared by many drivers about the 2026 cars.
“Not as fun as last year”
“Even worse,” Norris said when asked to compare today’s race with qualifying. “It simply wasn’t as fun as last year, but that’s how it is, and I think we maximized what we could today.”
Norris acknowledged the gap to the leading cars: “Clearly, we are very far from the cars ahead, but I fought well with Max. I didn’t think we’d stay ahead halfway through the race, because he was already behind me and had started last. I didn’t have high hopes, but we managed, and we made progress during the race. We improved, learned as we went, and that was important for us today.”
Tyre struggles and two-stop strategy
Lacking the pace of the front runners, Lando Norris had to battle long and hard, rapidly degrading his tyres. He became one of the few top drivers to require a two-stop strategy. The main culprit? McLaren’s ongoing struggle with graining on the front tyres, a recurring weakness for the Woking team over the past two seasons. On a track where this issue naturally emerges, it magnified the performance gap to the winning car and made energy management even more critical.
Overtaking in the new F1
The Melbourne race highlighted that overtaking now requires a significant speed differential. That differential can only arise when there’s a real disparity in available battery energy, which directly affects MGU-K power output. As a result, many overtakes early in the race were less about driver skill and more about waiting for the car ahead to run out of energy. The FIA has set predetermined speed reduction profiles for safety, but Norris and other drivers feel the risk of a serious incident remains high.
“Too much. It’s chaos, and you risk a big accident, which is a shame,” Norris explained. “You’re driving, and all you can do is wait for something to happen—and it could be really bad. It’s not a nice position to be in, but there’s nothing we can do. It’s all very artificial. It depends on what the PU decides to do, sometimes randomly. You can be overtaken by five cars, and there’s nothing you can do.”
“You can see differences of 30, 40, 50 km/h, and when someone hits another at that speed, you could fly over barriers and seriously injure yourself or others. It’s really terrifying to imagine. What would I change? I don’t know—it’s not my job. Obviously, as drivers, we’ll say what we need to. Some will be happier than others.”
Norris’s blunt observations underline the growing concerns among drivers about the safety and fairness of the new 2026 Formula 1 cars. As the season progresses, teams and the FIA will need to find solutions to ensure overtaking is both competitive and safe.
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