Lando Norris launches scathing attack on ‘terrible’ F1 tire sponsors

Lando Norris blamed the Pirelli tires for the chaos that was seen at the Australian Grand Prix and feels that better tires should be used in Formula 1.

The Australian Grand Prix saw multiple red flags and was labeled 'a complete mess' by many, especially after the race was stopped right after a restart. This happened when Carlos Sainz tagged Fernando Alonso into a spin at turn 1 and the two Alpines crashed into each other at the race restart.

McLaren saw their best results in the race so far this season, however, as Lando Norris feels, the Pirelli tires provided a 'terrible' grip because of the tire temperature and also reasoned it for why drivers have been locking up on turn 1. Motorsport quoted him:

"We have a soft [tyre] on that's 65 degrees [Centigrade] and I can't describe how little grip there is on track. It's not a bad temperature. But the tyre doesn't work and on this surface with this tyre temperature, I can't describe how bad the grip is."

"That's why you see everyone going straight on in Turn 1 and locking up… it provides literally no grip, so you have to brake so early, which causes chaos and causes incidents."

Tires in F1 are warmed up by the drivers to provide them with maximum grip before the start of a race. A cold tire could result in drivers locking their wheels up while braking due to lack of grip. Though the soft compounds during races (marked by the red color) provide the most grip, Norris feels that there needs to be a change.

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Lando Norris feels drivers should be provided with tires that deserve to be on an F1 car

Lando Norris spoke about the grip of the tires yet again as he added onto his comments. The Briton is adamant about the tires not providing enough friction to the cars, which is resulting in the crashes and chaos that was witnessed in Melbourne.

He feels that if better tires are provided, there would be less chaos and more of racing, as he said:

"If the tyres felt like they gave us some grip, I think you'd be able to see a good race without chaos and some clumsiness and things like that. It's just difficult. I wouldn't say it's clumsy from everyone. It's just you're racing and there's no grip, as simple as that."

"We need a tyre that gives us some more grip and actually a tyre that feels like it should be on a Formula 1 car at the top of motorsport and at the moment, on a day like today, it feels pretty terrible."

Although Lando Norris sounded furious about the tires, him, along with his teammate Oscar Piastri, pulled off their best result of the season for McLaren. After a very poor start, they managed to finish P6 and P8, respectively, putting the team in a more competitive position in the standings.