Lando Norris disputes Lewis Hamilton’s claims about Ferrari’s struggles in Shanghai
Lando Norris has launched a pointed attack on Lewis Hamilton, suggesting the seven-time world champion is inventing explanations for Ferrari’s struggles against Mercedes at the Chinese Grand Prix, reports BritPanorama.
The reigning world champion dismissed Hamilton’s assertion that his former team possesses a special qualifying engine mode unavailable to rivals. Norris stated, “Sometimes, when you are a bit off, you can create things in your head,” following Saturday’s qualifying session in Shanghai.
The McLaren driver, whose car is powered by Mercedes, firmly rejected any notion that the German manufacturer deploys a hidden performance advantage during single-lap competition. Hamilton had sparked the controversy earlier when he offered his theory for Mercedes’ commanding qualifying performances, claiming, “In qualifying, they have another mode that they’re able to go to, a bit like a ‘party mode’ back in the day, and once they get to Q2, they switch that on, and we don’t have that.”
Hamilton elaborated that while Mercedes cannot access this mode during races, they nonetheless retain a broader competitive edge, asserting, “So, whatever that is. And then in the race, they obviously don’t have that mode, so they still obviously have an advantage overall.”
Norris was unequivocal in his dismissal of Hamilton’s theory, noting his own experience with Mercedes power units as evidence. “We don’t have that, so maybe he is used to his old days when they had it back then,” he remarked. Instead of attributing Ferrari’s deficit to a power unit issue, Norris suggested mercedes’ supremacy results from effective execution across multiple facets. “Everywhere, we see that the Mercedes improved in the corners throughout qualifying; they had good deployment and on top of everything that they need to be on top of, so they’re just doing a very good job, it is as simple as that,” he explained.
Mercedes has established itself as the team to beat under the 2026 regulations, claiming a dominant one-two finish at the season-opening Australian Grand Prix. This superiority continued in Shanghai, where Kimi Antonelli secured pole position with George Russell alongside him on the front row. Hamilton qualified third, approximately 0.351 seconds adrift of Antonelli, while Norris found himself nearly two-tenths further back in sixth position. The McLaren driver will line up behind teammate Oscar Piastri and the Ferrari pair of Hamilton and Charles Leclerc when the Grand Prix commences on Sunday.
As the teams head into the race, the dynamic between drivers continues to illustrate how rivalries can fuel performance and provoke controversy in the fast-paced world of Formula One.
