F1 pre-season testing: Lando Norris admits new 2026 cars ‘not purest form of racing’

The McLaren driver also admitted that the cars were “certainly not the purest form of racing”, and that he shared Verstappen’s views in many ways.

“I agree with Max on a lot of comments,” the McLaren driver said. “Probably most of the comments I agree with, but it’s not that I don’t have fun out there. So there’s two sides.

“I do agree with basically every other driver, because I think every other driver has made their comments pretty clear. I just didn’t want to come out into the media and complain to everyone on the first weekend back. I want to still enjoy my time and just say what I feel.

“I had fun last week. I’ve still been having fun out there now. And I think we know as a championship with FIA and with Formula 1, we’re trying to improve the car that we have now, because it’s certainly not the purest form of racing, and that’s what Formula 1 should be.

“A lot of the driving is focused on just trying to get the battery to work properly and less focused on how can you as a driver get everything out of the car.”

Verstappen’s criticisms centred on the amount of energy management that is required with the new cars.

The combination of the power provided by the electrical part of the engine being increased three-fold, to about half of the total output, and the batteries being more or less the same size, has led to drivers doing tasks they have described as counter-intuitive.

These include not coming out of the corner before a qualifying lap as fast as possible, lifting and coasting on the straights on qualifying laps, and backing off before the end of a qualifying lap, all strategies aimed at the optimum use of energy and best overall lap time.

This has led to continuing discussions behind the scenes about tweaks to the rules before or after the start of the season, when the regulations governing engines are already complicated as a consequence of the way the engines perform.