Norris demands F1 raise top speed limiter after Mexico City train frustration

Lando Norris has publicly demanded that Formula 1 raise its top speed limiter, saying the current battery deployment cap made overtaking at the Mexico City Grand Prix effectively impossible and is damaging the racing product.

The McLaren driver spent much of Sunday’s race stuck in a train at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez, unable to close on the car ahead despite running in the slipstream down the circuit’s 1.2-kilometre front straight. In the paddock afterwards, he identified the hard ceiling on battery deployment as the root cause.

“The main thing with overtaking is you just have the limiter on,” Norris explained. “You literally have a limiter that stops you from going over a speed, so it doesn’t matter if you come out two tenths behind the guy — you just hit the limiter and the same limiter as them, and then you cannot do anything. It kind of ruins racing.”

Norris pointed to MotoGP as evidence that the restriction is unnecessary, noting that two-wheeled machinery regularly exceeds 370 km/h without the safety net of a seatbelt. “Especially when motorbikes go 370, and you don’t have a seat belt or anything, and we should easily be able to go quicker than a motorbike,” he said, calling it something “they need to improve for next season.”

The 2026 regulations are set to introduce active aerodynamics with a dedicated low-drag Straight Mode designed to maximise top-end velocity, but Norris dismissed the idea that upcoming powertrain changes would naturally resolve the issue. When asked whether new engine rules might lift the speed plateau, he was direct: “No, that’s got nothing to do with it. We still achieve the same top speeds when you have Straight Mode, and with the same power next year you still achieve the same top speed. You just need to make the limiter higher. It’s as simple as that.”

Despite the sharp criticism, the 25-year-old stopped short of blaming the speed cap entirely for his result in Mexico City, acknowledging that a significant pace advantage over the car ahead would still be needed to make a pass stick regardless of the limit.