Lando Norris speaks up ahead of Hungarian Grand Prix with drivers feeling new regulations have cramped their speed.<\/p>\n
Published On 25 Jul 202625 Jul 2026<\/p>\n
Formula One has been driven too much by business decisions and needs to remember it is a sport, according to McLaren\u2019s world champion Lando Norris.<\/p>\n
With drivers chafing \u2060at new regulations that have cramped their speed, particularly at last weekend\u2019s Belgian Grand Prix, the Briton told reporters ahead of Sunday\u2019s Hungarian round that Formula One could do better.<\/p>\n
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\u201cIt\u2019s a business,\u201d said the Briton. \u201cEveryone wants to make money, so in order for Audi \u2060and other teams to come in we had to change these things. It\u2019s a shame. It should never have been like that. But that\u2019s how businesses work.\u201d<\/p>\n
Audi have entered the sport this season after taking over Swiss-based Sauber, with the German carmaker encouraged by new rules that have increased the electrical element of the power unit to near-parity with the internal combustion engine. The rules have been \u200ctweaked for 2027 to reduce the electrical contribution.<\/p>\n
\u201cFormula One will always be great,\u201d said Norris, whose car has a Mercedes engine. \u201cIt can just be better.<\/p>\n
\u201cUs as drivers just know it better than everyone else. The thing that\u2019s a shame is that Formula One is too heavily led by the fact it\u2019s a business nowadays and not how can you make the sport the best possible. It\u2019s \u2018how can you just make the most money as a business?\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd that\u2019s just not what it should simply be. That\u2019s not how a sport should be run. The fact we have hybrids, 50-50 and all that, that\u2019s just because \u2060more teams wanted to come in it and because you make more money.\u201d<\/p>\n
Norris said the \u2060Liberty Media-owned sport was also divided between fans who followed Formula One before the arrival of the popular Netflix docu-series \u201cDrive to Survive\u201d and those who have been drawn to it since.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the fans you have nowadays, because they\u2019re a lot more personality-based \u2026 and not simply of Formula One as a whole \u2060sport, I think there\u2019s less interest in basically how the actual race goes, and more just \u2018has the driver done well or not?’\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that\u2019s just how the fans have changed over \u2060time, and that\u2019s completely fine. But the biggest voice should always be ours \u2060as drivers \u2026 We have the best idea of how racing should be, how it can be, what\u2019s possible, what\u2019s not.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe would just want the best for everything, the best for the fans, the best viewing, the best racing for us, the most fun to drive. And at the minute, we don\u2019t \u2026 we have very, very \u200clittle say, and a lot more of it\u2019s done because if you can have Audi and other teams in it, it\u2019s a bigger win than the drivers being happy.\u201d<\/p>\n
A Formula One spokesman responded to Norris\u2019s comments by saying drivers were listened to more \u200cthan \u200cever.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe sport on track is, and always will be, the priority,\u201d he said. \u201cEveryone has benefitted from the commercial success of Formula One, the drivers included. Decisions are made for the best strategic outcome for everyone: the fans, teams and partners.\u201d<\/p>\n
Norris was \u2060fastest in final \u2060practice for the Hungarian Grand Prix on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Last year\u2019s race winner lapped the Hungaroring circuit with \u2060a best time of 1:17.939, 0.117 seconds quicker than Ferrari\u2019s Lewis Hamilton.<\/p>\n
Formula One championship leader Kimi \u2060Antonelli was third fastest, 0.129 seconds off the pace and ahead of Ferrari\u2019s Charles Leclerc, McLaren\u2019s Oscar Piastri and Mercedes teammate George Russell.<\/p>\n
Red Bull\u2019s Max Verstappen was seventh on the timesheets, \u200cwith teammate Isack Hadjar eighth but 1.004 off the pace.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lando Norris speaks up ahead of Hungarian Grand Prix with drivers feeling new regulations have cramped their speed.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":559062,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[15311,63,85,46,21061,43,2224,105,1032,1156],"class_list":["post-559061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-belgium","tag-europe","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-motorsports","tag-news","tag-sport","tag-sports","tag-united-states","tag-us-canada"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559061","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=559061"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559061\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/559062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=559061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=559061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=559061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}