‘Get rid of the battery’: F1 under increasing pressure to make more changes to engine rules

Formula One is under increasing pressure to consider immediate changes and the long-term future of its new engines, with the world champion Lando Norris reiterating after the Miami Grand Prix that the only answer to address sport-wide dissatisfaction was to “get rid of the battery”.

At the meeting in Florida, which was won by Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli, with Norris second, F1 and the FIA had brought in fresh regulations to address unhappiness and safety concerns prompted by the pivotal role energy management plays under the new 2026 formula.

There has been widespread criticism of the formula – which employs almost a 50-50 split between the internal combustion engine (ICE) and electrical energy. And while the adjustments to mitigate the issues which came in this weekend were considered successful, the long-term distaste remains, as Norris noted.

“It’s a small step in the right direction but it’s not to the level that Formula One should still be at yet,” he said. “If you go flat-out everywhere and you try pushing like you were in previous years you still just get penalised for it. You still can’t be flat-out everywhere. You should never get penalised for that kind of thing and you still do.

“Honestly, I don’t really think you can fix that. You just have to get rid of the battery. So hopefully in a few years, that’s the case.”

Norris’s opinions were echoed by his McLaren teammate, Oscar Piastri, who pointedly noted that, for all the tweaks to the rules, it was the fundamental way the engines were designed to operate that was the problem.

“The collaboration again from the FIA and F1 has been good, but there’s only so many things you can change with the hardware we have,” he said. “So some changes in the future are still needed for sure. How quickly we can do it is the big question.”

Piastri’s position is understood to be popularly supported within the sport where there is general agreement for reducing the role of the electrical energy and increasing that of the combustion engine. However even given what is considered to be a relatively straightforward hardware redesign that would increase the fuel flow to the engine, there would have to be agreement from the teams and engine manufacturers as soon as the Canadian Grand Prix in three weeks in order for it to be adopted for next season.