Lando Norris had just won the Hungarian Grand Prix on Sunday when a reporter asked him what he planned to do with his summer break.
His answer was a deflection.
“Oh, this has got nothing to do with anyone.”
Verstappen, sitting one seat over after finishing second, did not let it go.
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“Good answer. Plug in the battery.”
Norris picked up the joke.
“I’ll go plug the car in,” he replied, before offering something closer to a real answer about spending time with family and playing golf and padel.
Why the battery line landed
The clip works twice. On the surface it is a rare piece of unscripted comedy between two drivers who normally save their sparring for the track. Underneath, it is another Verstappen jab at the 2026 power unit formula, which he has been complaining about since pre-season.
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The new regulations pushed the split between the internal combustion engine and the electric motor to roughly 53/47, and drivers have spent the year working around energy that runs out at the wrong moments.
Verstappen’s most concrete complaint came in Melbourne in March, when he crawled off the line at the season opener with a flat battery.
“Terrible. I had no battery. Somehow, on the formation lap, it drained all the battery,” he said afterwards. “I have no idea, I launched and, I mean, I had zero battery, so no power.”
By Spa in July, he was tired of repeating himself.
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“Honestly, I don’t want to sit here complaining again, because someone will probably shoot me outside,” he told reporters during the Belgian Grand Prix weekend.
Lewis Hamilton, asked at the same event whether the on-track issues matched the simulator warnings, aimed a sardonic line at the people who signed off the rules.
“I don’t know who made the decision, but whoever it is, that person will remain employed.”
F1 is already dialing the battery back
The pressure has worked. The FIA, F1 and the manufacturers have agreed to shift the balance toward the combustion engine, moving to a 58/42 split in 2027 and 60/40 by 2028, with more fuel flow and less reliance on the electric motor in normal racing conditions.
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That is the reason “plug in the battery” traveled beyond the usual F1 clip channels. When Verstappen says the word “battery” now, it lands as a jab whether he means it that way or not.
Second, and 91 points off Antonelli
Norris’s summer, whatever he ends up doing with it, is being spent chasing the championship. His Hungarian win still left him 91 points behind Mercedes driver Kimi Antonelli, who finished third on Sunday and leads the standings going into the break.
“He should feel the pressure, that’s for sure,” Norris said of the championship leader.
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