{"id":464148,"date":"2026-03-08T11:42:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-08T11:42:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/464148\/"},"modified":"2026-03-08T11:42:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T11:42:10","slug":"norris-continues-criticism-of-very-artificial-f1-2026-rules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/464148\/","title":{"rendered":"Norris continues criticism of “very artificial” F1 2026 rules"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lando Norris<\/a>\u00a0once again slammed the \u201cvery artificial\u201d 2026 Formula 1 regulations as he reckons races are now more dangerous than before after the dramatic Australian Grand Prix.<\/p>\n

This year, F1 is debuting its latest regulation overhaul with changes to both the chassis and power unit, the latter of which is the biggest contention point as electric power is more prominent.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It means battery management will play a greater role in grands prix and a lot of drivers don\u2019t like this, including Norris, who on Saturday claimed \u201cwe\u2019ve come from the best cars ever\u201d to \u201cprobably the worst\u201d.<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

That was after he qualified sixth for the Melbourne season opener before ultimately finishing fifth, in what was a rather frenetic race with drivers constantly to-and-froing for position<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It is something Norris predicted in pre-season when he said grands prix will be more \u201cchaotic\u201d with drivers \u201cyo-yoing\u201d in wheel-to-wheel battles, but this isn\u2019t something the reigning world champion enjoys.<\/p>\n

When asked if the Albert Park race was too chaotic, Norris replied: \u201cWay too much. It’s chaos, you’re going to have a big accident, which is a shame. You’re driving and we’re the ones just waiting for something to happen and something to go quite horribly wrong.<\/p>\n

\"Lando <\/p>\n

Lando Norris, McLaren<\/p>\n

Photo by: Steven Tee \/ LAT Images via Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cThat’s not a nice position to be in, but there’s nothing we can really do about that now. It’s a shame, it’s very artificial, depending on what the power unit decides to do and randomly does at times.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou just get overtaken by five cars or you can just do nothing about it sometimes. There’s nothing we can change about it, so there’s no point in saying any more, but not for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

A concern with the new regulations is closing speeds, because if a driver is harvesting battery, then the car behind will reduce the gap quicker than previously and this could potentially cause a dangerous scenario.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cJust depending on what people do, you can have 30, 40, 50kph speeds,\u201d added Norris. \u201cWhen someone hits someone at that speed, you’re going to fly and you’re going to go over the fence and you’re going to do a lot of damage to yourself and maybe to others. That’s a pretty horrible thing to think about.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read Also:<\/p>\n

We want to hear from you!<\/p>\n

Let us know what you would like to see from us in the future.<\/p>\n

Take our survey<\/a><\/p>\n

– The Autosport.com Team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lando Norris\u00a0once again slammed the \u201cvery artificial\u201d 2026 Formula 1 regulations as he reckons races are now more…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":464149,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[163951,372,59,1693,1469,163952,166514,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-464148","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-australian-gp","9":"tag-formula-1","10":"tag-gb","11":"tag-lando-norris","12":"tag-mclaren","13":"tag-melbourne-grand-prix-circuit","14":"tag-norris-continues-criticism-of-very-artificial-f1-2026-rules","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom","18":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=464148"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464148\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/464149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=464148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=464148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=464148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}