Lando Norris' genius plan could spark F1 2026 title charge

Norris after Sprint victory in Miami — Photo: © IMAGO

McLaren

Lando Norris' genius plan could spark F1 2026 title charge

Lando Norris won the 2025 drivers' championship

Sam Cook Digital Journalist

Sports Journalist who has been covering motorsport since 2023

Tuesday 19 May 2026 19:55

Lando Norris appears to have a plan for how he can get himself back into F1 championship contention.

Norris won the 2025 drivers' championship, beating McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri and four-time world champion Max Verstappen to that honour.

But so far in 2026, the Brit finds himself down in fourth in the drivers' championship after a poor start to the season.

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The 2026 regulation changes have seen Mercedes emerge as the dominant team, while McLaren have not even been able to snap up a grand prix victory so far this season, limited to just three podiums and a sprint race win.

It means that the 2024 and 2025 constructors' champions are already 86 points off the top of the 2026 constructors' championship, while Norris is 49 points behind drivers' championship leader Kimi Antonelli.

McLaren did, however, return to form somewhat in Miami last time out, achieving a one-two in the sprint race, and a two-three in the grand prix.

Now, Norris has revealed an unusual way of trying to develop his skills in F1 amid the new regulations overhaul. Norris went to watch Formula E earlier this month, a series which runs off 100 per cent electrical energy.

Sky Sports F1 pundit Karun Chandhok asked Norris at the Monaco E-Prix: "There's so much now in your world about energy and how you play with the races. Do you ever do you ever talk to the other guys here about you know, this is completely their game isn't it? Just planning the moves you know a lap, two laps in advance.

Norris replied: "Yeah. No I mean actually I was planning to do a bit of driving in a Formula E car at some point.

"I've spoken to Jake (Dennis) and I've spoken to guys from the past few years who have driven and there are little things. There's not everything kind of correlates between the two, but there are always little things you can learn, especially when you're speaking to drivers who are at the top of this category, there's always things that you want to listen to and understand."

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Is F1 becoming Formula E?

Norris' comments may just play into the narrative that F1 is becoming more and more like the all-electric series Formula E.

Verstappen previously compared the new cars to like driving a Formula E car, while the drivers have a much greater responsibility to manage their battery capacity.

But the new hybrid power units in F1 feature a 50-50 split between electrical energy and the internal combustion engine which runs off sustainable fuels.

While this is changing once more to 60-40 in favour of the internal combustion engine in 2027, either way it is still a long way off Formula E, where the cars do not have an internal combustion engine and are run off 100 per cent electrical energy.

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F1 McLaren Lando Norris Formula E