Jun.7 (GMM) Lando Norris has hit back at Lewis Hamilton for saying Formula 1 is now “quite easy” for young drivers.
In the FIA press conference in Montreal, the five time world champion asked 19-year-old Norris, who drives for McLaren, how old he is.
“Shoot,” 34-year-old Hamilton replied when the teenager gave the answer.
Later, the Mercedes driver said one problem with the sport today is that it should be “a man’s sport”.
“A lot of youngsters come in and it’s quite easy for them to get straight into it,” he said.
According to the Telegraph, Norris later hit back at Hamilton.
“I don’t know why he would say it now, and not when he first started,” the young Briton said.
“It must be targeted at me, George (Russell) and Alex (Albon), because we’re the youngest in F1 and I’m not suffering perhaps as much as he thinks I should.”
One of Hamilton’s complaints about today’s cars is that they are too easy for the young drivers to master because of power steering.
“Well, he can ask his team to turn down the power steering if he wants,” Norris, who drives for McLaren, responded.
However, Hamilton was echoing comments made this week by 1997 world champion Jacques Villeneuve, who thinks the increasingly young age of drivers is robbing F1 of “personality”.
“When all these 18 year olds come into our sport, it becomes banal,” he told Diario Sport newspaper.
“The F1 leadership has decided to make a show out of the sport. But I think in the heyday, it was not a show but an event that was full of emotion.”