Norris, Verstappen, Russell – and will it be any good? Key F1 storylines

Formula 1 enters a brave new world in the familiar surroundings of the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne this week.

The new cars that race around picturesque Albert Park, the place nearly everyone in F1 prefers to start a new season, may look familiar at first glance – they are F1 cars, after all.

But appearances can be deceptive. In fact, everything is new – cars, engines, tyres and fuel. And the changes are fundamental and dramatic.

Beyond that, while part of the charm of sport is that it’s inherently unpredictable, there are some key storylines that promise to define the season.

The new rules come with a significant degree of risk even if they have succeeded already in their primary aim.

When F1 was conceiving the new engines, the idea was to attract more car manufacturers into the sport, and particularly the Volkswagen Group.

So the engines were simplified in their architecture, and the electrical part of the engine was made more important.

As a consequence, Audi came into the sport, taking over the Sauber team. Its official debut this season marks the first time the VW Group has ever taken part in F1. Porsche, another VW brand which was also planning an entry, did not, after its talks with Red Bull collapsed.

But Ford has chosen to return, taking Porsche’s place as Red Bull’s partner, and its US rival General Motors has also entered, with an entirely new team bearing the name of its Cadillac brand.

So far, so good.

However, the engine rules, creating a near 50-50 split between the internal combustion and electrical parts of the engine, come with compromises.

The combination of an electrical system with three times as much power as last year but a battery more or less the same size means the cars are energy starved.

Attempts to make it easier to recover energy have led to moveable front and rear wings to reduce drag on the straights, and a complex series of rules and strategies, which definitely risk confusing the audience.

And the need for so much energy management has annoyed the drivers, who are complaining about unusual driving techniques.

There are various ways of recovering the energy and deploying it. Drivers have access to a “boost” mode for brief bursts of maximum power, and an “overtake” mode, which allows a driver within a second of a car in front to recover more energy and gives maximum power for longer.

As the electrical motor can now supply 350kw (470bhp), and the cars will be depleting and replenishing their batteries several times a lap, a car with a full charge will have nearly twice as much power as one with an empty battery.

The risk is that overtaking will be both more difficult, between cars with similar energy levels, and also ridiculously easy, between those with a large energy disparity.

George Russell has been pre-season favourite since long before the cars ran on track for the first time, and nothing that has happened in pre-season testing has changed that.

Although regulation changes can mix things up, the top four teams remain the same, although it appears the season may start with them in a different order.

Mercedes and Ferrari, the least successful last year, are believed to have a small advantage over McLaren and Red Bull, who disputed the drivers’ title.

But Red Bull’s first attempt at an in-house engine has drawn admiring glances and as Briton Russell puts it: “We obviously know how good Max [Verstappen] is so he’s very much going to be in the fight this year.”

Russell and Verstappen are not exactly best mates, and there is jeopardy besides the personal tension between them.

Mercedes were openly courting Verstappen last year, before he finally committed to Red Bull again. And that courtship is likely to start again this season.

Russell, 28, goes into the season with a new contract, but with the possibility of leaving at the end of the season.

Lando Norris achieved his lifetime ambition in winning his first world title last year, and says: “I enjoyed last year a lot, and of course I really want to do it again.”

Norris’ championship was founded on a brilliant comeback in the second half of the season, after a tricky first few races. The quality of it was overshadowed only by Verstappen’s even more impressive rise from a seemingly hopeless position at the end of the summer.

Apart from winning, Norris’ target this season is to improve himself, iron out the weaknesses that were exposed by his struggles with adapting to the McLaren last year.

He knows he has the naked ability but also that he’s not as rounded as some of his rivals.

“I know there’s still areas that I’m not at the level I need to be,” the 26-year-old says, “and it’s still a good level, but when you’re fighting these guys, you need to be close to perfection.

“There’s still plenty of things I want to work on and I want to be better on, but the baseline level of where I’m at now is already pretty good.

“My motivation to win is exactly the same. I’ve definitely not lost anything, and if anything I think I just have more confidence because I’ve said in interviews and stuff in the past that I’m very much a guy who has to see something to believe it, especially when it’s been on anything to do with myself.”

As last year, he faces an internal battle with Australian team-mate Oscar Piastri, as much as an external one. And Piastri will be keen to see his own development after what looked like a locked-on championship slipped away as his form dipped in the final few races.

Lewis Hamilton’s position as the most successful driver in F1 history is unthreatened for now, although Verstappen’s statistics could begin to challenge him before too long, but the past two seasons have damaged his status in F1.

Comprehensively beaten by Russell in his final season at Mercedes, Charles Leclerc dished out the same treatment to Hamilton in his first at Ferrari.

Aside from a victory in the sprint race in China, Ferrari’s only win of any kind all year, Hamilton’s honeymoon period at Maranello was short, and the year was a tough one for him on a personal level because it was so difficult on a competitive one.

Hamilton, 41, was never entirely comfortable with the ground-effect design philosophy to which the cars were designed from 2022-25.

His hope is that the new cars, which return to an aerodynamic approach much more like the ones with which he had so much success, will help him recover his mojo.

Even so, Leclerc is a tough standard to reach. His speed on a qualifying lap has never been in doubt and he has refined his talent into a formidable all-round level. He’s unquestionably one of the very best drivers on the grid, and he’s 13 years younger than Hamilton.

Aston Martin owner Lawrence Stroll has spent the past few years putting together the pieces he hopes will make his team world champions – ideally, in his mind, with son Lance at the wheel.

A brand new factory, including a state-of-the-art wind tunnel and driver-in-the-loop simulator. Fernando Alonso, one of the greatest drivers in history, in the car. A factory engine deal with Honda. The signing of design legend Adrian Newey was expected to be the icing on the cake.

And yet there is a strong chance that they will start the season last, even behind Cadillac, who expect to be at the back.

The Honda engine is significantly down on performance. The electric side is said to be 50kw below the maximum permitted output of 350kw, and it cannot recover energy at the highest level either, at least partly because the batteries are getting too hot.

At least some of that problem is down to unexpected vibrations to which the battery is being subjected, Honda have said, and they are struggling to identify the cause.

The car – the design of which drew admiring glances when it first appeared – also appears to be slow in the corners. But the problems with the engine are so extensive that it’s hard to have a proper understanding of where the car is.

For Alonso, it all must feel worryingly familiar after his time at McLaren when Honda first returned to F1 in 2015 – he experienced three difficult years before the team eventually decided to cut their losses.

Andy Cowell, the former Mercedes engine chief who was Aston Martin chief executive officer and team principal for a year before being demoted to chief strategy office after a clash with Newey, is spending a lot of time in Japan trying to help Honda find a solution.

The start of the season will be difficult. The question is how long the pain continues.

And Alonso’s future is wrapped up in this. His contract expires at the end of the season, by which time he will be 45.

He has said previously that he will be going into the year thinking it would be his last, but that a change of mind was always possible.