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Norris admits new F1 cars ‘not purest form of racing’ Image source, Getty ImagesImage caption, Lando Norris was quickest in the morning session on Thursday in BahrainByAndrew Benson
Lando Norris has admitted he described the new Formula 1 cars as “a lot of fun” last week to “see what the reaction was of everyone”.
The world champion also suggested Max Verstappen, who had stated the cars were “just not F1”, could “go and find something else to do” if he did not like them.
On Thursday, at the second pre-season test, Norris stated: “I just didn’t want to come out into the media and complain to everyone on the first weekend back.
“I just wanted to say that and see what the reaction was of everyone.
“It’s been quite an amusing week, and it certainly made a lot of people comment and say a lot of things.”
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 stated. “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.
A number of drivers have also expressed concern about the potential difficulty of overtaking as the former DRS overtaking aid has been replaced by a “boost” button giving a burst of extra electrical energy, which is proving less effective so far.
Williams driver Carlos Sainz, a director of the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association, stated: “My message to (commercial rights holder) FOM and FIA is (at) the start of the year we need to stay a bit open-minded in case the regulations that we’ve come up with are maybe a bit exaggerated on the amount of harvesting or deployment that we have to do through a lap.
“It might make some circuits OK, like potentially here, even though I still think here is not fully OK with what we’re seeing so far.
“But tracks like Melbourne or potentially Jeddah, tracks that might be more energy-demanding, we might need to adjust a bit the regulations.
“It is not easy because it’s such a big change that I don’t think anyone knew how to predict how much downforce/drag the car was going to have and what level of deployment the teams would come up with. We should stay flexible rather than committed to a certain level of energy management.”
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