‘You’re going to see more chaos in races where…’: Formula One champion Lando Norris on new rules in F1

“You’re going to see more chaos in races where a driver has to be a little bit more on top of all of these different situations that can happen. And that will happen throughout the whole year, I would say. There’s more emphasis on drivers’ ability to control all of these things.” Norris said addressing media during a pre-season event at McLaren’s Woking base,

Under the new Formula One rules, the cars will see the introduction of Active Aero, technology where the drivers can adjust the angle of both their front and rear wing elements on the track and activate low-drag mode on designated straights without the need to be within one second of the car in the front. The drivers will also have the choice of a Boost button, which they can use in defence as well overtaking with the overtake mode being triggered with the car within one second of the car in front and giving access to extra electrical energy. Norris spoke about how the new ‘boost’ button will be able to ‘better thing’. “You’ll be able to force people more in different positions and create racing potentially in better ways than you have been able to in the past. And that’s probably a better thing, a good thing. You’ll see more yo-yoing, more moves with extra speed. But then that person might have to defend more than what you’ve seen in the past and that will create more chaos, which is great for you guys,” Norris added.

The defending champion also spoke about how the driver’s main challenge will be battery management as well as knowing how to utilise the battery energy. “The biggest challenge at the minute is battery management and knowing how to utilise that in the best way. It’s not simple. You can explain it in quite simple terms. It’s just that you have a very powerful battery that doesn’t last very long, so knowing how to use it at the right times, how much energy, how much of that power you use, how you split it up around the lap… The biggest challenge is how you can recover the batteries as well as possible, and that’s when it comes down to using the gears, hitting the right revs. Obviously, you’ve got some turbo lag now, which we’ve never really had before. All of these little things have crept back in, but I don’t think that changes too much. In a perfect world, I probably wouldn’t have [all] that in a race car, but it’s just F1. Sometimes you have these different challenges,” said Norris.

Norris had won the world title last season in his seventh season as an F1 driver. While he admitted winning the title representing the achievement of his ‘life goal’ Norris spoke about how will start the 2026 campaign with the same determination to win the title again. “As much as I say that [achieving his life goal] I don’t feel any different coming into this season. I still feel like I just want to go out and win. It’s just my baseline feeling consistently. I think it’s just more at the end of the day if I don’t achieve something again, I always have something that I’m very proud about and I know it’s a huge achievement,” said Norris.