Imagine a qualifying lap where the fastest way around the track involves not going flat out. Where a driver, chasing every thousandth, deliberately lifts in certain sectors to manage energy harvesting. Where pushing harder, paradoxically, makes you slower.
That is Formula 1 in 2026. And it is a problem.
But here’s what I didn’t expect to be saying three races into a season I approached with considerable scepticism – it might be the only real problem. The racing itself has been quietly making a case that the new regulations have genuine potential. The fundamentals of the sweeping new formula, it turns out, are more promising than many of us were willing to admit.
The FIA meet on Thursday to discuss potential changes. The question isn’t whether 2026 is broken. It’s whether teams can reach agreement to make the necessary fixes that could make it something special.
Qualifying: The Purist’s Nightmare
Forget everything you associate with a great qualifying lap. The collective holding of breath as a driver throws wind to caution and unleashes an all-out attack. The sense that one mistake, one miscalculation, ends everything. Senna threading the barriers in Monaco in 1988. Schumacher flying around Suzuka in 2001. Hamilton finding time that simply didn’t seem to exist in Singapore in 2018. Vettel’s Monza lap in 2008, a wet weather masterclass in man and machine that enabled his Torro Rosso to beat the big boys.
That is what qualifying is supposed to be. That is what makes it F1’s purest theatre.
In 2026, the fastest way around a circuit in qualifying involves not going flat out.
The issue is super clipping – a consequence of the new regulations’ 50/50 internal combustion and electrical power split. The energy recovery systems are so aggressive that drivers are forced to lift in certain sectors, harvesting energy mid-lap in order to fully deploy on the straights. Pushing harder, paradoxically, makes you slower. It is a bizarre, counter-intuitive quirk that has nothing to do with raw driver skill and everything to do with energy accounting.
Charles Leclerc said it better than any journalist could after qualifying in Japan. “I can’t understand quali, it’s a fucking joke,” he radioed, the frustration unmistakable. “I go faster in corners, throttle earlier, for fuck’s sake, I’m losing everything in the straight.” Let’s hope this unfiltered piece doesn’t reach the desk of Ben Sulayem.
When a driver of Leclerc’s calibre can’t reconcile going faster with going slower, something is fundamentally wrong. Qualifying has always been the arena where drivers showcase their rawest ability – the one moment in a race weekend where nothing is managed, nothing is conserved. Super clipping doesn’t just undermine the spectacle. It risks making those iconic moments of the past feel like a different sport entirely.
The Racing: Reasons to be Cheerful
That’s my rant over. Let’s talk about the positives.
I came into 2026 sceptical. Not philosophically – I recognise F1 has moved beyond the V10 era, and the 50/50 power split makes sense in the context of manufacturer involvement and the sport’s broader direction. My scepticism was purely about the racing itself. Boost buttons, wild deployment differentials, cars simply motoring past one another on the straights with no meaningful chance to respond. F1 has grappled with an overtaking problem for years, and I understood the impulse to fix it – but I feared the cure might be worse than the ailment.
Three races in, it’s been considerably less problematic than I feared.
The Hamilton and Leclerc battle in China was the standout moment of the season so far, and arguably the most compelling argument for what these regulations can produce. Two of the greatest drivers of their generation, fighting tooth and nail for a podium, neither willing to surrender an inch. No forcing a rival off the road. No sterile “ahead at the apex” manoeuvres. Just hard, attritional, skilful racing that pushed both drivers to their absolute limit without either crossing it. That Leclerc radioed “that was actually quite a fun battle” mid-race – almost unheard of in the heat of competition – tells you everything about the quality of the contest.
Leclerc’s rearguard action against George Russell in Suzuka offered further encouragement. Defending against a car with a superior engine around a circuit defined by its long straights, he held firm through skill alone. The fear that raw power would render defence obsolete didn’t materialise. Drivers can still race.
It hasn’t been flawless. Some cars have simply rocketed past on the straights in a manner that bears little resemblance to genuine racing – an “overtake” in the technical sense only. And the incident between Oliver Bearman and Franco Colapinto in Suzuka was alarming. Colapinto was harvesting into Spoon corner, Bearman failed to read the enormous speed differential, and the result was a 50G shunt that nobody wants to see repeated. That specific safety concern needs urgent attention – we can perhaps consider ourselves lucky that we avoid the replication of these issues around the blind, high-speed walls of Jeddah.
But zoom out, and the picture is more encouraging than the discourse suggests. After years of processional racing in the ground effect era – and yes, post lap 1 snooze fest is the right phrase – these regulations have a genuine pulse to them. The platform works. Sunday has been making a quiet case that Saturday’s problems don’t define the whole package.
The Fix: Close to Something Special
The good news is the FIA know what the problems are – and according to BBC Sport, this week’s discussions will go beyond surface-level tweaks. The target is the fundamental energy management architecture of the new power units, with senior figures inside the sport privately acknowledging the ruleset has become unnecessarily complicated, constraining teams and drivers in ways that were never the intention.
The root cause is revealing. When the regulations were being designed, engineers established that the quickest way around a lap would be to unleash maximum electrical energy at the start of long straights as early as possible. The problem was that doing so would leave cars visibly bleeding speed for several seconds as that energy ran out – which didn’t look great. So a “ramp-down rate” was introduced to manage the decline. Super clipping, the lifting in qualifying, the artificial energy management – all of it ultimately traces back to that one cosmetic decision.
The fastest car in the world, hobbled by an aesthetic choice. You couldn’t write it.
The specific fix on the table is raising the super clipping recovery limit from 250kw to 350kw on full throttle, which would allow cars to harvest energy faster and dramatically reduce the need to lift and coast. No more drivers bleeding lap time in certain sectors to stockpile energy for the straight. No more paradox of lifting to go faster. Just drivers, pushing, for the entirety of a qualifying lap – the way it should be.
The closing speed issue that produced the Suzuka shunt is a separate but related conversation, and one the FIA will not take lightly. They have a strong record on safety, and the thought of those conditions recurring will concentrate minds considerably.
Do I trust them to act? Broadly, yes. They won’t get everything right immediately – they rarely do – and they’ll attract criticism whatever they decide. But the will to fix this feels genuine, and crucially, the fixes are there to be made.
Armchair Thoughts
I started this season unconvinced. The promises felt familiar, the wave of optimism forced. I’d seen enough F1 regulation cycles to know the gap between intention and reality can be vast.
Three races in, I’m not unconvinced anymore.
What these regulations have shown, even in their problematic, unrefined state, is genuine potential. The racing has had a pulse that the recent ground effect era rarely managed. The cars look spectacular. The battles have been real. And the primary problem – the thing robbing qualifying of its soul – is not a fundamental flaw. It is a fixable one, stemming from a single aesthetic decision that can be unpicked.
Get this right, and we won’t just be talking about a decent set of regulations. We’ll be talking about one of the great eras of the sport. The ingredients are there – the drama, the competition, the cars, the drivers. All that’s missing is the freedom to let them showcase their immense skills.
The FIA have a decision to make. F1 is closer to something special than most people realise. It would be a tragedy to squander the potential.
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