Norris delivers blunt verdict: 'It's a shame Spa won't be the same'

Like Silverstone, Spa-Francorchamps places high demands on energy deployment because of its long straights. "It's just a shame, honestly. It's certainly not going to be the same Spa as what it's always been. We'll see," Norris told GPblog, among others, when asked what he expects from this weekend with the current generation of Formula 1 cars. His teammate, Oscar Piastri, previously said that he expects racing at Spa to be "sad."

The defending F1 world champion continued: "We'll see what it's like in Pouhon and a few of the other corners, but it's certainly not going to be quite the same challenge as what it's always been.

"I love it here, I think every driver loves, but we also like driving cars that are not just about the looks battery reliant, and yeah. We don't get much in those things, so that's the way it is," the Briton explained.

Ahead of the Belgian Grand Prix, McLaren confirmed that Norris will take a 10-place grid penalty for the race.

The Briton hopes he will have the chance to make up some ground come Sunday. He explained: "I have to wait and see really how the overtaking is. Most people will deploy basically the whole battery down to Turn 5, and you go from pretty much 100 battery to zero, so there's not much more use for battery.

"So I don't have all the answers yet but we know it's better than Zandvoort and better than Hungary taking penalties. I hope so, I hope it's not the end of my weekend before it started, but I'm so confident we can have a good weekend," he concluded.