Trying to explain why drivers dislike driving the 2026 F1…
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Trying to explain why drivers dislike driving the 2026 F1 cars
This post isn't meant to hate on the 2026 regs. I don't know what kind of racing they'll produce and nor does anyone. However, there is truth in what the drivers are saying about the cars and it's not the same as 2014 or any other year.
First of all, I wanna say that lap times in isolation don't matter. Even if F1 cars are a lot slower this year, I won't really care much if they provide us with good racing. And I don't really think that's the main problem that drivers have.
The problem they do have though, is that cars are no longer being driven to the limit, even in qualifying, in certain sections of the track. Bahrain T12 is now a recharging zone where the car has very limited power. This means that while the cars have the capability to go much faster around the corner, teams are choosing an energy deployment strategy which intentionally slows them down.
And before anyone says 'Its just testing, we haven't even seen a quali lap', yes. That specific corner might not be slow at all come the actual race. But there will 100% be sections like this around a race track, especially on tracks like Monza, Baku, Vegas and Jeddah, where the cars will be driven way below their limit to recharge. Everyone including the drivers, FIA, teams and independent engineers are in agreement with this.
This is vastly different from 2014 cars. They were still driven at the limit at every point in a quali lap, even if they were slow. The drivers were always on the edge of the limit and trying to find every tenth of a second around a corner. The 2026 cars are intentionally being slowed down around certain corners, through which they have the downforce and the grip to go faster.
This is what drivers like Alonso and Gasly mean when they say that drivers are becoming passengers or that their chef can drive the cars. In 2025, a mistake in Turn 12 could cost you valuable lap time. In 2026, there won't be many mistakes in Turn 12 at all, due to how slow they are going and how below the limit the cars are. This takes away a driver's skill on being able to take the corner better, since it is effectively no longer a corner at all but instead a recharging zone.
And you might ask, why is that bad? Aren't they going faster later in the lap as a result? Isn't their job to minimise lap time? Due to the energy recharged during the corner, they'll be way faster in the straights compared to most F1 cars in history. And to that, the answer is that going faster in the straights doesn't really correlate with driving skills. Drivers are basically 'giving up' their skill to take certain corners fast to instead learn another skill of Energy Management.
This is what they mean when they say that engineers have more control over the car with deployment maps than a driver does with his driving. This is the reason why Hamilton thinks 600m of LiCo in Barcelona is not racing, or why Verstappen thinks that this version of F1 is FE on steroids.
The one who learns to manage energy the best is the one who will extract the most lap time, not the one who has the skill to take corners in the least amount of time. Is that good or bad? That's your personal opinion. It certainly isn't good for the drivers to showcase their skills of driving the cars to their limit, that is for sure.
And finally, these things are all being done over the course of a single lap. Vastly different to tyre or fuel management, which were done over a race distance. Even FE cars can be driven on their limit, flat out with full power for a quali lap. It's just race laps where they have to manage energy. Again, is that good for the viewers? We don't know. What we do know is that it is not what the drivers have learnt about driving so far their entire life, ever since they began karting.
#cars
This post isn't meant to hate on the 2026 regs. I don't know what kind of racing they'll produce and nor does anyone. However, there is truth in what the drivers are saying about the cars and it's not the same as 2014 or any other year.
First of all, I wanna say that lap times in isolation don't matter. Even if F1 cars are a lot slower this year, I won't really care much if they provide us with good racing. And I don't really think that's the main problem that drivers have.
The problem they do have though, is that cars are no longer being driven to the limit, even in qualifying, in certain sections of the track. Bahrain T12 is now a recharging zone where the car has very limited power. This means that while the cars have the capability to go much faster around the corner, teams are choosing an energy deployment strategy which intentionally slows them down.
And before anyone says 'Its just testing, we haven't even seen a quali lap', yes. That specific corner might not be slow at all come the actual race. But there will 100% be sections like this around a race track, especially on tracks like Monza, Baku, Vegas and Jeddah, where the cars will be driven way below their limit to recharge. Everyone including the drivers, FIA, teams and independent engineers are in agreement with this.
This is vastly different from 2014 cars. They were still driven at the limit at every point in a quali lap, even if they were slow. The drivers were always on the edge of the limit and trying to find every tenth of a second around a corner. The 2026 cars are intentionally being slowed down around certain corners, through which they have the downforce and the grip to go faster.
This is what drivers like Alonso and Gasly mean when they say that drivers are becoming passengers or that their chef can drive the cars. In 2025, a mistake in Turn 12 could cost you valuable lap time. In 2026, there won't be many mistakes in Turn 12 at all, due to how slow they are going and how below the limit the cars are. This takes away a driver's skill on being able to take the corner better, since it is effectively no longer a corner at all but instead a recharging zone.
And you might ask, why is that bad? Aren't they going faster later in the lap as a result? Isn't their job to minimise lap time? Due to the energy recharged during the corner, they'll be way faster in the straights compared to most F1 cars in history. And to that, the answer is that going faster in the straights doesn't really correlate with driving skills. Drivers are basically 'giving up' their skill to take certain corners fast to instead learn another skill of Energy Management.
This is what they mean when they say that engineers have more control over the car with deployment maps than a driver does with his driving. This is the reason why Hamilton thinks 600m of LiCo in Barcelona is not racing, or why Verstappen thinks that this version of F1 is FE on steroids.
The one who learns to manage energy the best is the one who will extract the most lap time, not the one who has the skill to take corners in the least amount of time. Is that good or bad? That's your personal opinion. It certainly isn't good for the drivers to showcase their skills of driving the cars to their limit, that is for sure.
And finally, these things are all being done over the course of a single lap. Vastly different to tyre or fuel management, which were done over a race distance. Even FE cars can be driven on their limit, flat out with full power for a quali lap. It's just race laps where they have to manage energy. Again, is that good for the viewers? We don't know. What we do know is that it is not what the drivers have learnt about driving so far their entire life, ever since they began karting.
#cars
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