F1 needs better balance between business and sport, says Norris

BUDAPEST: Formula One has been driven too much by business decisions and needs to remember it is a sport, according to McLaren’s world champion Lando Norris.
With drivers chafing at new regulations that have cramped their speed, particularly at last weekend’s Belgian Grand Prix, the Briton told reporters ahead of Sunday’s Hungarian round that Formula One could do better.
“It’s a business,” said the Briton. “Everyone wants to make money, so in order for Audi and other teams to come in we had to change these things. It’s a shame. It should never ‌have been like ‌that. But that’s how businesses work.”
Audi have entered the ‌sport ⁠this season after ⁠taking over Swiss-based Sauber, with the German carmaker encouraged by new rules that have increased the electrical element of the power unit to near-parity with the internal combustion engine. The rules have been tweaked for 2027 to reduce the electrical contribution.
“Formula One will always be great,” said Norris, whose car has a Mercedes engine. “It can just be better.
“Us as drivers just know it better than everyone else. The thing that’s a shame ⁠is that Formula One is too heavily led by the ‌fact it’s a business nowadays and not how ‌can you make the sport the best possible? It’s ‘how can you just make the most money ‌as a business?’.
“And that’s just not what it should simply be. That’s not ‌how a sport should be run. The fact we have hybrids, 50-50 and all that, that’s just because more teams wanted to come in it and because you make more money.”

DIVIDED SPORT
Norris said the Liberty Media-owned sport was also divided between fans who followed Formula One ‌before the arrival of the popular Netflix docu-series “Drive to Survive” and those who have been drawn to it