Lando Norris agrees with Max Verstappen on new F1 cars

Lando Norris has said that he described the new F1 cars as "a lot of fun" the previous week, just to see the reaction of other drivers.

The world champion also said last week that Max Verstappen, who had termed the cars "anti-racing", could retire if he wanted to.

At the second pre-season test on Thursday, Norris said: "I just didn't want to come out into the media and complain to everyone on the first weekend back.

"I just wanted to say that and see what the reaction was of everyone.

"It's been quite an amusing week, and it certainly made a lot of people comment and say a lot of things."

Lando Norris of McLaren also admitted that the cars were "certainly not the purest form of racing" and that he agreed with Verstappen on a lot of things.

"I agree with Max on a lot of comments," the McLaren driver said. "Probably most of the comments I agree with, but it's not that I don't have fun out there. So there's two sides.

"I do agree with basically every other driver, because I think every other driver has made their comments pretty clear. I just didn't want to come out into the media and complain to everyone on the first weekend back. I want to still enjoy my time and just say what I feel.

"I had fun last week. I've still been having fun out there now. And I think we know as a championship with FIA and with Formula 1, we're trying to improve the car that we have now, because it's certainly not the purest form of racing, and that's what Formula 1 should be.

"A lot of the driving is focused on just trying to get the battery to work properly and less focused on how can you as a driver get everything out of the car."

Verstappen's criticism was related to the amount of energy management that is required with the new cars.

The 2026 F1 cars have been opined differently, as there has been a paradigm shift in how they are driven. There is now a 50/50 split in power delivery, with the electric component seeing a significant increase.

As a result, to attain the maximum electric power, drivers have to adopt an unnatural driving style, consisting of persistent lift-and-coast and revving the power unit in lower gears than usual at different parts of the track.