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Norris warns of dangerous new Formula 1 cars: 'Not a nice position to be in'

Photo: Race Pictures

F1 News

11:22, 08 Mar

Updated: 12:48, 08 Mar

8 Comments

byKada Sarkozi

Lando Norris did not mince his words about the 2026 Formula 1 cars after the first race of the season.

"We're the ones just waiting for something to happen and something to go quite horribly wrong, and that's not a nice position to be in."

- Lando Norris

The British driver was not happy with the quality of racing in Melbourne. "Even worse (than yesterday)," Norris began to GPblog among others after finishing fifth.

"I don't know, just not as fun as last year, but it is what it is, and I think we maximised today."

He continued: "We're a long way off the cars ahead, but I put up a good fight with Max. I didn't think we were going to stay ahead at the halfway point because he was already behind me and he started last.

"I didn't have much hope, but we managed to do it and we made some improvements along the way. We improved, we learned along the way and that was an important thing for us today."

Photo: Race Pictures

Norris continues criticism of new F1 cars and warns of danger

The defending world champion believes racing is too artificial. "It's just, yes, it's chaos. You're going to have a big accident, which is a shame that you're kind of driving and we're the ones just waiting for something to happen and something to go quite horribly wrong, and that's not a nice position to be in," he warned.

"There's nothing we can really do about that now. Yes, it's very artificial. Depending on what the power unit decides to do and randomly does at times. You just get overtaken by five cars or you can just do nothing about it sometimes. There's nothing we can change about it, there's no point in saying anymore. Not for me.

"Just depending on what people do, you can have a 30, 40, 50 kph speed difference, and when 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, and that's a pretty horrible thing to think about."

On the other hand, Norris does not have a solution yet for these issues. The Briton also underlined that McLaren needs to improve as well.

"I don't know, that's not my job. We'll say what we need to say as drivers. Some will be happier than others, I understand that of course, but at the same time, we didn’t do as good of a job as other teams. We need to improve ourselves first."