Three races into Formula 1’s 2026 era and the sport is already staring at a familiar problem: the rules are doing exactly what the spreadsheet said they would, and the drivers hate what it’s doing to the racing.
On Monday afternoon, the key decision-makers — team principals, the FIA, Formula One Management and the power unit manufacturers — are due to sit down at 1400 UK time to decide whether the championship needs immediate surgery ahead of Miami. The aim isn’t a wholesale rewrite of the new regulations, but a set of targeted adjustments to dial back the energy-management extremities that have crept into the on-track product.
The uncomfortable truth is that 2026’s “driving experience” hasn’t just been altered; it’s been reshaped around harvesting and deployment thresholds in a way that’s forcing behaviours drivers instinctively resist. Excessive lift-and-coast. Long spells of superclipping at the current 250kW rate. Approaches to corners dictated less by commitment and more by the need to arrive at the next straight with the right battery state. It’s not subtle, and you can hear it in the paddock: the racing isn’t necessarily worse everywhere, but the rhythm is wrong.
The proposals due to be tabled are centred on energy use. Among the ideas in play is an increase in the superclipping rate to a 350kW harvest, plus the introduction of bespoke energy-harvesting limits depending on the demands of each circuit. The current default harvesting limit is 8.5mJ, but it’s become a major contributor to the conservative driving patterns we’ve seen. One of the more eye-catching options is to reduce that default significantly — figures around 5–6mJ have been floated — which would, inevitably, cost lap time. The argument is that it would also reduce the need for the kind of extreme technique that’s started to define 2026 qualifying and race management.
It’s telling that nobody in the debate seems particularly sentimental about absolute lap time right now. The worry is more fundamental: whether the cars are encouraging the wrong kind of risk — or worse, disguising it until it bites.
Japan provided the sharpest reminder yet. After months of drivers raising red flags about energy-management dynamics and closing-speed deltas, Oliver Bearman’s huge crash at Suzuka landed right in the middle of those concerns. Bearman was caught out by a large speed difference to Franco Colapinto at a moment when his battery was in full deployment mode, and it didn’t take long for the conversation to turn from “this is awkward” to “this is dangerous”.
Drivers have been vocal all season. Max Verstappen, Carlos Sainz and Bearman have all made their displeasure clear with how the new rules have changed the approach to driving — and not in a romantic “it was better in my day” way, but in the practical sense that they’re having to unlearn habits that make cars quick, safe and entertaining.
They’ve also tried to push their case directly. Last week included two FIA meetings with the drivers, one of which was described internally as notably positive, with tweaks and refinements agreed in principle. But as ever in F1, principle and governance aren’t the same thing.
Even through the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association, the drivers don’t have a vote on regulatory change. They can influence, they can apply pressure, they can make noise — but it’s the teams, along with the FIA, FOM and the manufacturers, who will decide what happens next.
That gap matters because the incentives don’t always align. A driver wants a car that rewards instinct and commitment; a team wants regulations that don’t yank away the advantage it may have found in the current interpretation. In the paddock, there’s already been grumbling that some drivers don’t feel their own teams are properly carrying their concerns into the room — and you don’t need to be especially cynical to guess why.
FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem attempted to set a cooperative tone on Sunday night, saying discussions had been “constructive and collaborative” and that the drivers had offered “invaluable input” on adjustments, “particularly in the areas of energy management to ensure safe, fair, and competitive racing”. He added that the FIA had also met technical representatives from teams, manufacturers and FOM in recent weeks, and that final proposals would be put before a World Motor Sport Council e-vote after Monday’s meeting.
The politics of timing are where it gets messy. For changes to land immediately for Miami, the vote must be unanimous — a high bar even when everyone agrees there’s a problem. If unanimity doesn’t happen, the FIA still holds a lever: it can intervene on safety grounds. That’s not a route anyone takes lightly, but Bearman’s Suzuka shunt has sharpened the definition of “safety concern” in this context.
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff, speaking on Monday morning, sounded like a man trying to steer the conversation away from panic and towards precision. “We all share the same objectives,” Wolff said, describing the talks between drivers, FIA, F1 and the teams as constructive. But he warned against overreaction: the sport needs to “act with a scalpel and not with a baseball bat”.
It’s a very Wolff way of framing it — pragmatic, slightly managerial, and aimed at avoiding the classic F1 trap of lurching from one extreme to the other. He also made the broader point that it’s only three races in, and that the sport has to be careful not to “overshoot” with reactive tweaks it regrets later. In other words: fix what needs fixing, but don’t accidentally redesign the whole concept in the process.
Wolff also hinted at a reality everyone in the paddock understands: this probably isn’t going to be a one-off. The new regulations have already forced changes to starting procedures because of the time it takes to spool up the turbos for safe launches, and once you start pulling on one thread, others tend to move. F1 can either manage that evolution deliberately, or let it happen in a series of rushed weekend-to-weekend patches.
For now, Miami is the pressure point. If the sport can agree a set of targeted adjustments — the kind that reduce the lift-and-coast theatre and make the cars feel less like they’re being driven around an energy spreadsheet — it buys itself breathing room. If it can’t, the next few races risk becoming an argument conducted at 200mph: drivers pushing for sanity, teams protecting competitive detail, and the FIA sitting between them with a safety mandate that may yet force its hand.
