Feeling the recent refinements to the regulations don't go far enough, 2025 world champion urges F1 to ditch the battery.

While fans, and the majority of drivers, were unhappy with the impact the regulations were having on the entire race weekend, the focus of the refinements - other than safety - was to allow the drivers to go flat-out in qualifying by reducing the need to recharge the car's battery. However, such is the nature of the Miami track that the amount of electrical energy that could be recovered (8 megajoules) was exactly the same as Suzuka.

"It's a small step in the right direction," said Norris, who claimed pole for the Sprint and qualified fourth for the Grand Prix, "but it's not to the level that Formula 1 should be at yet.

"Sill in qualifying, if you go flat-out everywhere and you try pushing like you were in previous years, you get penalized for it," he continued.

"You still can't be flat-out everywhere, it's not about being as early on throttle everywhere. You should never get penalized for that kind of thing and you still do.

"So 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."

Of course, other than qualifying there is the race itself, which, despite the insistence of Stefano Domenicali, Toto Wolff and others to the contrary, is still producing the yo-yoing as first described by the McLaren driver.

"The races are basically exactly the same," added teammate Oscar Piastri, "and I think today was my first proper experience of overtaking people and then having to defend and stuff like that. It's pretty crazy, to be honest.

"At one point George was one second behind me and managed to overtake me by the end of that straight," he explained. "It's just a bit random. The closing speeds are huge and trying to anticipate that as the defending driver is incredibly tough to do.

"Obviously for the overtaking driver, I wasn't that pleased with one of the moves that George did," he admitted, "but I kind of found myself almost doing the same move about five laps later, just because the closing speed is enormous.

"So from that side of things, not much has really changed. I think 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. So some changes in the future are I think still needed for sure. How quickly we can do it is the big question."

And of course, while there might be the way in which to fix things, it is doubtful whether, as far as the powers that be are concerned, there is the will.

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READERS COMMENTS

1. Posted by BruceBoy, 11 hours ago

"@mossman - FACTS"

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2. Posted by MossMan, 12 hours ago

"Follow-up in case you don't believe me: search for "national grid live" and you can find the charts where you will see that over the last year, the UK used the following:
Coal 0.0%
Gas 26.5%
Solar 6.7%
Wind 35.3%
Hydroelectric 1.3%
Nuclear 12.8%
Biomass 7.5%"

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3. Posted by MossMan, 12 hours ago

"@Tyrbiter - I'm sorry but every single one of your statements is wholly incorrect...

- difficult to store: in fact electricity is very easy to store, and large-scale battery storage is being built out on most national grids at a rapid pace. It is already a cheap solution and is very rapidly getting cheaper. Hydro storage has been around for decades (large-scale use on the UK national grid since the 1960s), gravity storage is being trialled (pull weights up mineshafts during excess power, release during peak power) - then there are things not applicable to automotive like heat storage in bricks, sand etc. for retaining domestic heat and heating water. Plus - and this is very relevant here - soon most EVs will be bi-directional and these form virtual gigabatteries when smartly connected... this is being trialled in many places already.

- mostly from coal oil and gas: not any more, not by a long shot. Coal is almost gone, gas is on the way out in most of Europe and China. Renewables are already ~50% of most countries' generation and increasing exponentially

- solar and wind are pretty unreliable: again, most of the world is using renewables for ~50% or more, and many countries have periods of 100% renewable use. Battery-backed wind and solar farms will be the norm."

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4. Posted by KKK, 15 hours ago

"Lets face it, FE is for all electric.....WEC is for semi Hybrid, Indi is for the fun fairs, F1 is all ICE, V8's or V12 or V10....this is not F1 racing at it should be. Sod the manufacturers, leave F1 alone. Miami was a bore-fest, from start to finish"

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5. Posted by Hobgoblin, 15 hours ago

"They really should be talking to Paddy Lowe and his Zero synthetic fuels."

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6. Posted by Tyrbiter, 16 hours ago

"@Spindoctor So where does that electricity come from? Given that it's very difficult to store, mostly from coal, oil and gas. Solar and wind are pretty unreliable and require 100% backup from dispatchable generation.

The key part of motorsport is that last syllable, it's a sport, which involves racing, it's not an economy drive."

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7. Posted by Spindoctor, 17 hours ago

"I can understand their frustration. The current cars are more than a bit silly.

Current world events are making it clear that dino juice is a fairly unreliable form of energy because bad actors can use it to really screw up the world economy. As a result, electrification is looking more attractive to punters as a power source, if not to the likes of Ford, Porsche etc & of course Mr Suliman.

Formula E is developing and it would seem rational for F1 either to revise its commitment to electrons, so the PUs work sensibly, or to revert to 19th century technology & go back to V8s..."

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Ditch the battery, urges Norris

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