As Formula 1 readies for a new season of competition beginning Saturday evening in Australia, its biggest stars are becoming the biggest critics of its new car and regulations.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Following qualifying for the season-opening Australian Grand Prix, four-time series champion Max Verstappen and defending champion Lando Norris didn’t hold back on their criticisms of the car.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“We’ve come from the best cars ever made in Formula 1 and the nicest to drive to probably the worst,” Norris said, per ESPN’s Nate Saunders<\/a>.<\/p>\n Verstappen, who crashed in qualifying, said that he “was not having fun” driving the new cars.\u00a0<\/p>\n It’s far from the first time drivers in a racing series have voiced their complaints regarding a new vehicle.\u00a0<\/p>\n NASCAR’s COT was once heavily ridiculed<\/p>\n In 2007, NASCAR\u00a0<\/a>found itself in a similar position to Formula 1: The sport was wildly popular in the United States and poised to grow.\u00a0<\/p>\n However, as the years wore on, unstable economic conditions, the playoff format and retiring superstars, among other factors, led to a major decline in the sport’s popularity.\u00a0<\/p>\n Is F1 going down a similar road? It’s far too early to tell. And even if Formula 1 did see a major drop-off in popularity stateside, it has something NASCAR doesn’t: a rabid fan base in all corners of the globe.\u00a0<\/p>\n But in regard to the cars on the racetrack, F1 finds itself where NASCAR did when it began introducing its “Car of Tomorrow” (COT) in 2007: Drivers don’t like it, and fans don’t seem keen on it, either.<\/p>\n Kyle Busch won the first race with the COT at Bristol Motor Speedway in March 2007. Standing in victory lane, he wasn’t at all subtle about his feelings for NASCAR’s new car.<\/p>\n