Max Verstappen says the 2026 F1 car doesn’t feel like Formula 1 due to heavy energy management, while Lando Norris says he’s enjoying it.
New Delhi: Norris, who held off Verstappen by just two points to secure the 2025 title, said of the new cars: “It’s a lot of fun. Any driver can go and find something else to do. It’s not like he has to be here or any driver has to be here.
“The new engines are “energy-starved” owing to the manner in which the regulations have been set up for them and also require several types of recovery to ensure that there are “sufficient levels of charge” for maximum speeds on the lap.
This has given rise to very peculiar modes of driving, such as not accelerating out of the last corner on the track before a qualifying lap, and changing down a gear in the corners for maximum energy harvesting.
Verstappen About The Car
“The right word is management,” Verstappen, who has seen his team use its own engine for the first time this season, replied. “On the other hand, I also know how much work has been going on in the background. Also from the engine side, for the guys. So it’s not always the nicest thing to say.”
However, I would also like to be realistic.
“But I also want to be realistic. As a driver, the feeling is not very Formula 1 like. It feels a bit more like Formula E on steroids.” “As a pure driver, I enjoy driving flat out. And at the moment, you cannot drive like that. There’s a lot going on.”
“A lot of what you do as a driver, in terms of inputs, has a massive effect on the energy side of things.”For me, that’s just not Formula 1. Maybe it’s better to drive Formula E, right? Because that’s all about energy efficiency and energy management. Okay, that’s what they stand for. Driving-wise, it’s not so fun.”
Norris’s Point Of View
But Norris said: “A lot of fun. I really enjoyed it. Formula 1 changes all the time. Sometimes it’s a bit better to drive, sometimes not as good to drive “But we get paid a stupid amount of money to drive so we can’t really complain in the end of the day.”
“It’s a challenge, but it’s a good, fun challenge for the engineers and the drivers. “It’s different. You have to drive it in a different way, and you have to understand things differently, and you have to manage things differently.” “And I still get to drive cars and travel the world and have a lot of fun so, no, nothing to complain about.”
According to Verstappen, however, his “concern was that the new cars are taking us away from what you’d traditionally expect from an F1 driver. He added: “All the good drivers will be able to adapt to it. That’s not the problem. It’s just the whole way of racing is changing, and I would say less pure.”
“I just want normal driving, just how it should be, without having to think like ‘oh, if I brake a bit longer, shorter, more, less, up and down through the gears,’ you know, stuff like that, which impacts it so much on the straights.
The all-electric race series has become known for having heavy energy management, so that the cars can get to the end of the races without running out of charge. F1 is not in the same position either, as instead of a set charge that reduces from a full charge to zero charge over a set distance from the start to the finish, as is the case with Formula E, the F1 battery charge will vary from full charge to a small charge and back again multiple times over a single lap.
However, the point Verstappen is trying to get across is that the lack of energy to drive flat out all the time is taking the sport away from the traditional way of driving.
Officials Opinion
Senior officials of F1 have warned that one cannot immediately make conclusions about the new rules at an early stage when everything on the F1 racers is new. The biggest regulation change F1 has ever seen has, this year, brought new rules for the chassis, the engine, the tyres, and sustainable fuels.
The configuration of the engines has a near 50-50 split between the parts of internal combustion and electrical components, and the facility has three times the electrical power of last year, the same size battery.
There are ways the rules could have been constructed to ensure energy management was not such a feature, for example by slightly reducing the power of the hybrid element and allowing the engines to use more fuel, or even by allowing recovery of energy from the front axle as well as the rear.
But none of those have so far been allowed. On the chassis side, a straight-line mode has been introduced which reduces drag from the front and rear wings specifically to aid energy recovery. The tyres have been made narrower for the same reasons. And the cars are smaller and lighter and have less grip and downforce.
The cars recover energy by four means:
- While Braking
- Running the engine at high revs while cornering
- Lifting off early and coasting at the end of straights
- Running the electric motor against the engine at 100% throttle
Verstappen is considering competing in the Nurburgring 24 Hours at the famous 14-mile long Nordschleife circuit this year in a GT car – a modified road car.
He said: “Looking at it now, at least maybe I can drive flat out there, without looking after my battery. I mean, I want to do it, we are working on it to make it happen, but I cannot confirm it yet.”
