Max Verstappen and Lando Norris have criticised the new Formula 1 cars after both struggled at the season-opening qualifying in Australia.
Four-time F1 world champion Verstappen shockingly crashed out at the start of his first lap in Q1 after a “weird” rear-axle failure on his Red Bull car. He will start from 20th on the grid on Sunday.
Norris, who won his first championship last year, qualified sixth on the grid, behind his McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri. Mercedes, meanwhile, locked out the front row with George Russell on pole alongside Kimi Antonelli.
While qualifying was marred by various issues with a number of cars, the new energy deployment aspect of qualifying irritated a lot of the field. In particular, the drivers are forced to downshift at the end of straights as they max out on power, instead of simply accelerating further.
“I’m definitely not having fun, at all, with these cars. I don’t know,” Verstappen said.
“I mean, you can make up your mind, but I think, if you look at the onboard, you’ll see I’m right. There’s nothing that you can do.
“You can only make it slower, and then, of course, you get a bit more of a normal speed trace, but it’s a slower speed trace.”
Verstappen then called for the FIA, F1’s governing body, to make a change: “The formula is just not correct, and that is something that is a bit harder to change. But I think we need to.”
Speaking to Dutch media, Verstappen added: “I’m not enjoying it at all. Emotionally and feeling-wise, I’m completely drained. This has very little to do with racing.”
Norris, whose McLaren team look someway short of Mercedes’ leading pace, was similarly scathing and downbeat.
“Not very good, not very nice,” he told Sky Sports F1. “I think George [Russell] will be the only one saying it was nice.
“Just inconsistent. It’s just tricky, I’ve been a bit on the back foot, a lot of issues on the car. Trying to work through them and you just try to minimise them, luck’s not been on my side.
“I was actually pretty happy with the position in the end, I was figuring out how to drive the car.”
When asked how racing laps might feel to qualifying laps, Norris replied: “It already sucks, so it’s probably going to be even worse.”
The Briton also stated: “We’ve gone from the best cars to the worst.”
The Australian Grand Prix starts at 4am (GMT) on Sunday morning,, with a host of unknowns heading into the 58-lap race.
