The Mercedes driver defends the regulations
The new generation of cars and, above all, the new power units are dividing the criticism understood in this case as the protagonists of the F1 World Championship themselves. On the one hand there are those who currently have to catch up like Max Verstappen and Lando Norris, who have harshly criticized F1 2026 (Verstappen from the beginning, Norris has mended his ways along the way). On the other hand, those in front, Mercedes first and foremost, are obviously not going to attack these new rules. Frederic Vasseur and Toto Wolff, for example, defined the first 10 laps of the Australian GP – characterized by overtaking and counter-overtaking between George Russell and Charles Leclerc – the most spectacular of the last 10 years.
George Russell was confronted with the stance taken by Lando Norris according to which exactly “these cars suck, the 50/50 split between electric power and endothermic power doesn’t work”.
The Mercedes driver, fresh winner of the GP, responded like this: “If he were winning, I don’t think he would say the same thing – the words of George Russell – you know, we weren’t happy with the stiffness of last year’s cars and the porpoising, everyone had back pain and the drivers complained about it, but the McLaren drivers said there was no porpoising, even though we looked at their car and saw that there was. So, you know, everyone is always looking at themselves and we’re all selfish in that sense. The truth is that last year we had the same engine and McLaren did a better job than us and beat us. Now McLaren has the same engine as us, the same as Williams and the same as Alpine, and so far we’ve done a better job than them. That’s how this game works.”
