Ridiculous or actually enjoyable? F1 drivers divided on 2026 after first race

More Formula 1 drivers have joined the refrain of negativity across the new 2026 automobiles after the primary race of the brand new season in Australia, with Carlos Sainz calling the brand new lively aerodynamics “dangerous”, Esteban Ocon describing the racing as “painful” and Sergio Perez calling it “a lot less fun”.

But this negativity just isn’t common amongst those that sit contained in the cockpits.

After reigning world champion Lando Norris went on the assault on Saturday after qualifying, calling the 2026 automobiles “the worst” and saying “it sucks”, it’s attention-grabbing to see extra drivers be a part of him and Max Verstappen in feeling that F1 has not made a change for the higher with these all-new automobiles and energy models.

Verstappen and Norris each had extra to say after the race too, with Verstappen calling the Australian Grand Prix “chaos” and Norris saying the automobiles have been “even worse” in race trim than in qualifying, after they have been clearly significantly underwhelming to drive – within the high-speed sections, particularly. 

There are a number of nuanced strands to this criticism too; it’s not like there is only one side that’s annoying sure drivers. And in fact, there’s a good old style aspect of aggressive frustration at play too.

After all, any F1 driver who’s profitable or being comparatively profitable is at all times going to be extra optimistic than one who’s annoyed by a scarcity of efficiency of their automotive.

Midfield victor Ollie Bearman even acknowledged this in giving his solutions, admitting “the fact that I finished P7 means that I’m happy, even if the car has not been the most fun to drive this weekend”.

Nevertheless, there seems to be a rising groundswell of opinion that these guidelines are problematic in a number of methods.

‘Artificial’ racing

This is a phrase that got here up repeatedly when drivers have been questioned about how the race performed out for many who had correct on-track battles to struggle. Both Bearman and Norris had forthright issues to say about how battery administration now fully dictates the on-track motion in a manner they discover unenjoyable.

“It’s a bit ridiculous to be honest,” Bearman stated. “To have that a lot delta in a button and to lose that a lot on the subsequent straight. It’s additionally very non-linear, so what you acquire on the straight the place you utilize the increase is 1 / 4 as a lot as what you lose on the subsequent straight. 

“So unless you basically complete the move at the start of the straight – as in, you exit the corner, you complete the move – and then you harvest, harvest, harvest, the next straight they’re gonna get you back. 

“That’s not racing, that’s Formula E.”

Bearman and his Haas team-mate Esteban Ocon both offer valuable perspectives, because they were in the thick of almost race-long midfield battles: Bearman with Arvid Lindblad’s Racing Bulls and Ocon with Pierre Gasly’s Alpine. So they were trying to race closely for long periods rather than simply driving their own races or relying on pit strategy to move forward.

---

Make us your paddock pass for the 2026 F1 season – join The Race Members’ Club Today and enjoy 90% off your first month

---

“It’s painful because you can’t really do much as drivers,” said Ocon. “Once you use the boost button and you haven’t managed to overtake – or even if you overtake actually, you are just vulnerable again on the next straight. 

“The other guy is going to overtake you again. Which happened with Pierre, like, three times, happened with Gabi [Bortoleto] as well when I was fighting him, two times. I just overtook and got overtaken again. 

“It’s very frustrating. It feels like it’s very artificial in the way you have to drive.”

This is something Sergio Perez also said about his first race back in F1 after a year away, calling it “too artificial”, while Gasly went as far as calling it “not natural” (while also being at pains to defer any real criticism until the sample set of races is bigger).

“It’s very hard to understand what’s going on,” Perez explained. “Sometimes you do a small lift and it changes more than you would expect. Sometimes I was arriving 30kph quicker into Turn 3 because of a different lift or a different throttle pick up, some things honestly, I don’t understand. 

“It’s a very different Formula 1 to what I was used to, it’s a lot less fun, definitely. It’s not as fun as it used to be on the racing side, not great to be honest.”

A ‘dangerous’ game

Norris was another to jump on the ‘artificial racing’ theme after the race, calling it “way too much”, albeit in quite measured and philosophical tones. 

But he also used it to raise concerns about safety – particularly around the rapid closing speeds that happen when one car suddenly runs out of battery energy deployment.

“It’s chaos, you’re going have a big accident,” he said. “We’re just waiting something to go quite horribly wrong and that’s not a nice position to be in. 

“Depending what people do, you can have a 30, 40, 50kph speed [difference] and when someone hits someone at that speed you’re going to fly and you’re going to go over the fence and you’re going to do a lot of damage to yourself and maybe to others, and that’s a pretty horrible thing to think about. 

“But there’s nothing we can really do about that now. It’s a shame, it’s very artificial. Depending on what the power unit decides to do and randomly does at times, you just get overtaken by five cars or you can just do nothing about it sometimes. 

“There’s nothing we can change about it so there’s no point in saying any more. [It’s] not for me.”

There was a terrifying near-miss at the start of the race, when Franco Colapinto somehow avoided Liam Lawson’s stationary Racing Bulls on the grid, but it should be said this is something that could happen in any era of F1, when one car stalls at the start and another comes rapidly and unsighted from much further back.

But for Williams driver and drivers’ association representative Carlos Sainz, there is a wider safety issue for this new era of F1 with regards to how the active aerodynamics work.

“The biggest worry for me about the racing was lap one,” he said. “I feel like it was really sketchy with SLM [straightline mode] on, everyone on the back straight. It felt really dangerous, and very difficult to control the car in the slipstream. 

“And then when racing someone else… the same. If it’s straight line, it’s not bad, because it’s like DRS last year. But when there’s a bit of cornering and both cars are using SLM, it becomes – like there’s cornering in Turns 7-8, on that back straight, it feels sketchy also. 

“For sure lap one and overtaking doesn’t seem to be very safe at the minute with the SLM active.”

And from there Sainz’s criticism drifts from pure safety to the fact the cars now are having to use these potentially dangerous active aerodynamics because of how power-starved the new engines are.

“The issue is not the SLM, the SLM we need, if not – you guys saw we were doing lift and coast like crazy yesterday in qualy, all teams,” Sainz added. 

“We should not need to have active aero for racing, in my opinion. I think the active aero and the SLM is a plaster on top of the issue of the engine.

“And then once you come to circuits like these, that you simply’re energy-starved, you find yourself having to make use of SLM in locations the place we should not, to guard the factor, the deployment, so ultimately you find yourself having a harmful state of affairs like we had in lap one and racing basically.

“If you now take away SLM, we can’t even race with the deployment we now have. So we type of want SLM. But it is a plaster to an answer to an engine components that for me simply would not appear to work very effectively proper now.”

Criticism not common

Criticism of the brand new rules is rising among the many 22 drivers, however just isn’t common, and it’s maybe no shock that the winner of the primary race of F1 2026, George Russell, might be essentially the most vocal advocate for the modifications proper now. 

“Everyone’s very quick to criticise things,” stated Russell, who maybe predictably characterised Norris’s distress as being extra associated to McLaren’s new aggressive place than a real hatred for new-look F1. 

“You need to give it a shot. We’re 22 drivers, when we’ve had the best cars and the least tyre degradation and when we’ve been happiest, everyone moans the racing’s rubbish. 

“Now, drivers aren’t perfectly happy and everyone said it was an amazing race. So you can’t have it all, and I think we should just give it a chance and see after a few more races.

“The only thing I would request from the FIA is that with the straight mode, the front wing doesn’t drop as aggressively when we open straight mode. 

“We all have lots of understeer and when I was behind Charles [Leclerc] and I was trying to duck out of his slipstream it was like my front wing wasn’t working.”

Russell just isn’t a lone voice in his positivity, nevertheless it’s in all probability truthful to say there’s a fairly apparent sliding scale at play right here.

The Mercedes drivers are very professional the modifications, they usually so occur to have essentially the most aggressive automotive proper now. 

The Ferrari drivers are fairly optimistic, they usually so occur to have the second finest automotive proper now.

The Audi drivers are optimistic, and it simply so occurs the foundations have been designed to entice their present employer to hitch the championship within the first place.

And then you’ve got drivers like Valtteri Bottas, who’s simply pragmatically glad to be again on the grid and take issues for what they’re!

But even then, there’s some nuance at play. Lewis Hamilton completed off the rostrum, however had nothing however optimistic issues to say concerning the new guidelines.

“I personally loved it,” he stated. “I thought the race was really fun to drive. I thought the car was really, really fun to drive. I watched the cars ahead and there was good battling back and forth.

“I thought it was awesome. With 20 cars ahead of you it may have seemed different. But from my position I thought it was great.”

Now is that positivity just because Hamilton hated the final algorithm a lot, or is it right down to him being personally decided to close out any negativity come what could? Has he drunk the F1 Kool Aid or is he genuinely actually loving F1 2026?

His Ferrari team-mate Charles Leclerc was much less enthusiastic, you would possibly say impartial in his stance. But he no less than characterised fairly effectively that F1 has essentially modified now, for higher or worse and no matter which facet of that line you sit.

“It will definitely change the way we go about racing and overtaking,” he stated. “Before it was more about who is the bravest at braking the latest, maybe now there’s a bit more of a strategic mind behind every move you make, because every boost button activation you’re going to pay the price big time after that. 

“And so you kind of always try and think multiple steps ahead to try and end up eventually first. It’s a different way to go about racing, for sure.”

Qualifying as power administration and racing as chess. This is F1’s new actuality. It’s as much as you whether or not you prefer it or not. It’s as much as the FIA to determine if it is secure or not.