– Ahead of the Hungarian Grand Prix, George Russell is struggling not only with the characteristics of the W13, but above all with the form of his teammate Kimi Antonelli. The 19-year-old is 50 points ahead of the more experienced of the two Mercedes drivers in the championship standings. According to Lando Norris, Formula 1 drivers who are unable to adapt to new conditions at the top of the world are simply not good enough.
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“Well, I’ve had to adapt my driving style every year of my life,” said Norris in Hungary. Formula 1 2026 also requires drivers to be able to adapt to completely new characteristics and to the demands of complex power units. Many in the field dislike the often arbitrary nature of hybrid engines.
“I suppose for [Russell] that driving style has worked for 20 years,” Norris explains. “Not for me. My driving style worked in 2018 when I did my test year. But that was it. Since then, I’ve always had to adapt.”
F1: Hungarian Grand Prix (Budapest) 2026
In the drivers’ standings, the reigning world champion is in fifth place after the race weekend in Spa, eleven points ahead of his teammate Oscar Piastri. In the qualifying duel, however, Norris dominates his last year’s championship rival with 10 to 4. And if you believe the words of McLaren team principal Andrea Stella, Piastri also has major problems adapting to the driving style of the current cars.
“The more experience you have in Formula 1, the better prepared you should be [for such things],” Norris explains. “If you’re not willing to adapt to a different car, then you’re simply not good enough. After all, that’s our job, we get millions for it.”
“It’s about,” Norris says, “driving the car you’re given. It doesn’t matter if it’s a good, a bad, an easy, or a difficult [car]. You just have to do it.”
Norris himself struggled particularly in qualifying with his McLaren in the first half of the 2025 season. It was only later in the year that the future world champion managed to adapt to the MCL39 with the help of the team.
This season, Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc serves as a prime example of this development. “Il Predestinato” managed to find a solution to his problems with the SF-26 before the British Grand Prix. Since then, Leclerc has been able to finish in the top 3 twice in a row and even win the British Grand Prix.
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“Currently, at every race, I have to completely forget the previous weekend,” Norris says about the 2026 cars. “I have to (repeatedly) learn to drive a new car, that’s just how it is for us.”
“Every driver is different. But for me, my entire Formula 1 career has always been about how I can adapt my driving style from season to season.”
2026 presents a very special challenge for drivers due to the new power units. Not only is the drivers’ throttle foot responsible for the available power, but also the use of AI technology. Consequently, drivers like Piastri describe the driving feel as strange and say that often the computer, not the driver, decides success or failure.
Nevertheless, Norris emphasizes in Hungary that drivers still make the difference and can, for example, find time in corner combinations. Spa-Francorchamps or Silverstone would be less suitable for this than, for example, “Monaco without guardrails” in Budapest.
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“Some corners are bigger this weekend than in the past,” Norris explains. “After all, the top speed before turns 11 and 4 is higher than last season, and with less grip.”
“So it’s almost the opposite,” says the world champion. “As a good driver, it’s an even greater chance to make a difference.”
For Russell, the result at the last stop before the Formula 1 summer break will not only depend on his driving style. The third-placed driver in the Drivers’ World Championship recently struggled with deployment problems. Teammate Antonelli was confident after his victory in Belgium that the team would be able to fix this error by the race at the Hungaroring.
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