MOTOR RACING: F1 needs to better balance business and sport, McLaren champ says

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 since.

"I think the fans you have nowadays, because they're a lot more personality-based... and not simply of Formula One as a whole sport, I think there's less interest in basically how the actual race goes, and more just 'has the driver done well or not?'," he added.

"I think that's just how the fans have changed over time, and that's completely fine. But the biggest voice should always be ours as drivers... we have the best idea of how racing should be, how it can be, what's possible, what's not.

"We would just want the best for everything, the best for the fans, the best viewing, the best racing for us, the most fun to drive. And at the minute, we don't... we have very, very little say, and a lot more of it's done because if you can have Audi and other teams in it, it's a bigger win than the drivers being happy."

A Formula One spokesman responded to Norris's comments by saying drivers were listened to more than ever.

"The sport on track is, and always will be, the priority," he said. "Everyone has benefited from the commercial success of Formula One -- the drivers included. Decisions are made for the best strategic outcome for everyone -- the fans, teams and partners."

Reporting by Alan Baldwin, editing by Ed Osmond and Clare Fallon/Reuters