Charles Leclerc believes strategy now outweighs bravery when executing overtaking moves under Formula 1’s new regulations this year.
The first nine laps of Sunday’s opening round of the season in Australia saw the lead of the race change seven times as Leclerc went wheel-to-wheel with Mercedes’ George Russell at the front of the pack.
Leclerc eventually lost out to Russell after Ferrari opted against making a crucial pit stop under a Virtual Safety Car, but he was leading the race up until lap 26.
The battle between the two drivers in the opening laps included multiple position swaps per lap as they made use of the powerful electric boost and overtake modes that have been introduced to spice up racing under this year’s regulations.
At one stage when Leclerc was informed by his engineer that he had use of overtake mode for the lap, he responded: “This is like the mushroom in Mario Kart.”
Using overtake mode or boost mode can provide a significant power advantage, but comes at the cost of depleting the car’s battery and making it vulnerable to being repassed later in the lap.
While the race provided a high number of overtakes — F1 proudly claimed there had been 120 overtakes at this year’s Australian Grand Prix compared to 45 in 2025 — Leclerc said the skills required to complete them had changed.
“I think that it will definitely change the way we go about racing and overtaking,” Leclerc said of the new rules. “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.
“Every boost button activation, you know you’re going to pay the price big time after that, and so you always try and think multiple steps ahead to try and end up eventually first. But it’s a different way to go about racing for sure.”
While the reaction from drivers to the new rules has been largely negative, the circuit layout of Melbourne’s Albert Park may have exacerbated the limitations of the new rules.
Roughly 78% of the lap is spent at full throttle, while there are only three points on the circuit at which drivers brake hard for more than 0.4 seconds. That combination — along with four individual straights around the circuit — meant there were plenty of opportunities to deploy battery power in Australia but very few to recover it.
Russell pointed out that the situation will be different at other circuits, including at this weekend’s second round of the season at the Shanghai International Circuit.
“I think the interesting thing with these regs is every track we go to, they’re not always going to be like this,” Sunday’s race winner said. “You know, we’re going to Shanghai next where you’ve got one big, long straight, so the majority of drivers will be using their energy on that one straight.
“You don’t need to divide it up between four like you do here in Melbourne. So, everyone’s very quick to criticise things. You need to give it a shot, you know.
“We’re 22 drivers. When we’ve had the best cars and the least tyre degradation is when we’ve been happiest, but everyone [else] 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.”
