Lando Norris on F1 2026’s energy management: ‘No skill should be required on cool-down laps’

Battery management is unreasonable with Formula 1’s new machinery, Lando Norris reckons

Lando Norris says energy management has grown too preponderant with Formula 1’s new technical regulations – especially on cool-down laps, when “there should be no skill required”.

A power split close to 50-50 between combustion and electric energy means batteries must be nursed at all times in order to maximise performance.

The Miami and Montreal tracks, with significant time on full throttle in the final sector before crossing the start/finish line, provide even more of a challenge as batteries need to be fully charged when getting a qualifying lap under way, while the rules prevent drivers from going too slow on the out-lap.

“If you go too slow at times, you get penalised,” Norris said on Thursday. “If you go too quick at times, you get penalised. It's just difficult.

“You spend your laps not just looking at who's behind you and where people are with blue flags and things like that. You spend half your time just looking at the dash trying to make sure you're not going too quick, too slow and somewhere in between.

“But still, it's easy to be too high. You lose boost pressure, you have a bad exit, battery goes, you go too slow, you don't get the battery up enough, and then you also have those issues.

Lando Norris, McLaren

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Formula 1 via Getty Images

“The fact you're going at a high speed can probably be quite a challenge. Or the fact that you might have blue flags, have to go slowly, reaccelerate. When you reaccelerate, you use your battery again.

“It's certainly not as easy as I would like it to be. Especially if we're just on a cool-down lap. There should be no skill required for that kind of thing. You have to be pretty skilled at nailing it. It's one of the many things, of course, out of Miami that we reviewed, and we'll try and do a better job on that.”

The McLaren driver was sixth-fastest in the Canadian Grand Prix’s sole practice session, 1.4s down on Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli, but got much closer in sprint qualifying with a 0.315s deficit to polesitter George Russell.

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Asked by Sky Sports F1 if this was a good result, Norris replied: “Very good result, actually. No, a good surprise.

“After this morning, we were a little bit worried, let's say, about how far off we were and more just the lack of confidence in the car. But we made some tweaks, we changed some things and seemed to make a good improvement. So I'm happy with it.

“I mean, it wasn't the best lap, I could have got more out of it. But then when I saw the gap to the guys ahead, not that much. So, positive turnaround and I'm proud of the team that we managed to do such a good job.”

Lando Norris, McLaren

Photo by: Steven Tee / LAT Images via Getty Images

McLaren introduced a comprehensive upgrade package at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, featuring updates on the front and rear wings, engine cover, rear suspension and halo among other parts.

“It certainly felt decent,” Norris added. “Some things are maybe a bit more questionable and we probably need just more time to review things and look back, especially because it's such a weird track. It's so low-grip, you're kind of bouncing off kerbs and stuff.

“So, you're not getting a true representation of everything, and it's hard to back it up with what we have in the winter and things like that. So, we need a bit more time with some bits and we'll probably reintroduce some of them next weekend or in Barcelona.

“But at the same time, the rest of the car now I think was clearly working well, and I felt confident in Q3, especially on the soft, which is probably the first time this weekend that I felt that confidence.

“So now a good step forward and we'll see what we can improve, knowing that, into tomorrow.”

Additional reporting by Filip Cleeren