Having clearly not received the memo from Stefano Domenicali, world champions Max Verstappen and Lando Norris remain unimpressed by the new generation of cars.

"We've come from the best cars ever made in Formula 1 and the nicest to drive to probably the worst," said Norris in the aftermath of a qualifying session in which he finished sixth, almost a second off the pace.

"It sucks, but you have to live with it and just maximise what you get given," he added. "It's certainly different, it's certainly not like it was last year. It's not like, 'yeah, push this corner more'," he added.

"Sometimes you push more, you lose the battery and just go slower. You have to understand how to do things."

"I'm definitely not having fun at all with these cars," said Verstappen, who crashed out early in Q1 and will start from twentieth on the grid. "I don't know," he added. "I mean, you can make up your mind, but I think if you look at the onboard, you see enough, right?"

In a move that will surely cause apoplexy at F1 Towers and the Place de la Concorde, Norris said: "I think everyone knows what the issues are, it's the fact it's a 50-50 split. It just doesn't work!"

Cue shrieks of horror from the powers that be, for the 50/50 split was the selling point that attracted Audi, Ford, GM and convinced Honda to remain, though Aston Martin might not entirely agree that, in terms of the Japanese manufacturer, this was a particularly good thing.

"The fact, you decelerate so much before corners, you have to lift everywhere to make sure the battery pack's at the top... if the pack's too high, you're also screwed," said Norris.

"It's just difficult. But, yeah, it's what we have. It doesn't feel good as a driver, but I'm sure George is smiling, so it doesn't really matter in the end of the day. You've just got to maximise what you're going to give it."

In a move that will further infuriate the powers that be, the 2025 world champion suggests that the opinions of drivers and fans have been ignored.

"I think we have the interest of the sport in our minds better than others," he said. "We also want the best for the sport. At the same time, we don't try and do things to make it more fun for us. We try and do it so it's cooler cars, looks better to watch, more exciting, all these different things.

"The rules have been changed because that's what manufacturers want," he added. "But if you have twenty other drivers complaining, I don't know what's better for the sport or not."

Check out our Saturday gallery from Melbourne here.