Driver Frustration at Suzuka Shows 2026 F1 Rule Tweaks Cannot Come Soon Enough
· Yahoo Sports
The Japanese Grand Prix weekend has added more fuel to the debate over the 2026 Formula 1 regulations and what, if anything, can be done to tweak them over the course of this season.
We had some great wheel-to-wheel racing at the front over the first couple of weekends in Australia and China. However, there’s no escaping the fact that many of the drivers are unhappy with the way energy management and deployment have become utterly dominant, with some being more vocal in their criticism than others.
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The biggest concern is qualifying, which has turned from the traditional test of raw speed and pushing to the edge into a sort of game of three-dimensional chess, where going fast in the wrong places actually penalises you as you then run out of energy, and where the slightest lift to correct a slide triggers a bit of software that then potentially robs you of power later around the lap.
While these issues were apparent in the first two races, a classic old-school circuit like Suzuka really put them into sharp focus.
And that was despite a small tweak to the energy usage regulations before the weekend, designed to improve matters and reduce reliance on superclipping, which causes the car to harvest energy while on full throttle, leading to a drop in speed. The change did make things better, but not by enough.
Drivers were still running out of energy and losing speed on the run to the chicane, for example, while the classic Esses section had a pedestrian feel as drivers took it only with ICE power, and no electrical energy.
Williams driver Carlos Sainz gave a vivid description of how qualifying panned out for him. "Bit disappointed in quali as the more you pushed, the slower you went,” he said. “I went quicker in every corner, slower in every straight, and [overall] I went one-tenth slower. And that's simply because I spent more time full throttle, because I went faster in the corners and pushed harder in the high-speed, pushed everywhere. And super clipping came into the deployment a bit, and a bit of lift and coasting also in that quali lap. So overall, not good enough, I think, for F1."
Carlos Sainz was disappointed in his loss of speed in Q2 due to superclipping.Peter Fox - Getty ImagesAsked if Suzuka was still challenging in qualifying this time around, drivers were quick to express their views.
"Comparing to last year and the previous few years?," said Lando Norris. "Certainly not. Still hurts your soul when you see your speed dropping so much – 56 kph down the straight. It still feels quick. It's not like the lap times are miles off; 26.9 was pole last year, and it's a couple of seconds. Which is a lot, it's also not a huge amount. So it still feels special. It still feels like it's an on-edge lap, and you're taking risks here and there and so forth. Does it feel as amazing as last year? No, I don't think any track will, but we have to get used to that."
Fernando Alonso was even more adamant that the challenge has gone away.
"I told you in Bahrain, Turn 12, the chef could drive the car now," he said. "Maybe not the chef – 50% of the team members, I think, at least, can drive in Suzuka. Because, as I said a few times already, high-speed corners now become the charging station for the car. So you go slow there, you charge the battery at high speed, and then you have the full power on the straight. So driver skill is not really needed anymore.
"You just need to back off the throttle or turn down the battery, and you charge the thing. So no more challenge in the high-speed..."
After this weekend, the rules will be reviewed with all the knowledge gained over the sample of the first three races, and with the Middle Eastern events cancelled and a big gap in the schedule, there is time for changes to be implemented for Miami, with qualifying as the main focus.
On Friday, the matter was discussed by the drivers with the key stakeholders, including the FIA’s Nikolas Tombazis, the key architect of the 2026 regulations.
However, drivers are sceptical about how much change can be pushed through, because as is always the case the teams and power unit manufacturers all have vested interests.
"I'm not expecting much from it, but I hope they make some big changes," said Lewis Hamilton of the upcoming debate. "There'll be a lot of chefs in the kitchen. And it doesn't usually end up with a good result!"
"Listening to the team and the FIA yesterday – Nikolas – they seemed to be pushing and have a plan in mind," said GPDA director Sainz. "I'm a bit worried that the teams will push back. Some teams will be against changing it too much, because they have other interests. But I think we've made it very clear from the drivers that it needs to get better, and hopefully the FIA listens more to the drivers.”
It says a lot about how complicated the regulations are that even the guys who drive the cars are left confused by the whole thing.
"I don't understand the regulations enough to give you a solution," said Sainz. "I think that's down to engineers and rulers of the sport to come up with a better solution. For me, it's just clear that it's still not good enough, and that we need to keep improving it. We did a very small tweak to the regulations this weekend that delayed that super clip, and delayed that to arrive only in quali, let's say. But as soon as the grip picked up in quali, and we all were all pushing, I think we all suddenly started to be very hungry on deployment."
No one has been more vocal about the regs than Max Verstappen, who intensely dislikes the current cars.
The Dutchman accepts that any changes for this year won’t have a huge impact – but he’s hoping that there will be scope for more in 2027.
"For this year, I know, they are trying their best, but it's also political, right?" he said.
"I fully understand, of course, from other manufacturers. Rightly so, I'm not bitter about that or anything. And it's also not about me being in the position that I am in terms of like, P7 to 11-12. I just hope that it will be just a little bit more fun to drive. But of course, for this year, it will be like tiny little changes. That doesn't really make a big difference. I just hope that, yeah, the changes are big enough for next year.”
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