Max Verstappen has said the limitations of Formula 1’s new regulations were predictable from the outset, warning it is already “a bit late” to make changes to improve the racing.
F1’s new generation of hybrid cars will race for the first time on Sunday in Australia, but experiences from preseason testing in Bahrain have raised concerns over the type of racing the new regulations will provide.
The desire by F1’s rulemakers to have cars that are powered 50% by sustainable fuels and 50% by electric power has created a delicate balance for the drivers that Verstappen has already labelled “anti-racing” and like “Formula E on steroids.”
The concern is that some circuit layouts, such as Melbourne’s Albert Park, present so few opportunities to charge the battery under heavy braking that drivers are forced to harvest energy at other parts of the track, such as high-speed corners or the end of straights, where they would normally be driving flat out.
By driving sacrificing lap time strategically at those parts of the circuit to top up the battery, the recovered energy can then be used to lower the overall lap time through extended periods of energy deployment on straights.
F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali has urged the sport’s stakeholders not to panic and says its regulatory body, the FIA, is open to changes if they prove necessary early in the season.
But Verstappen points out that the limitations of the new rules have been present since they were first announced in 2022, and any meaningful change now would come after teams have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in development.
“Yeah, we’re a bit late with that, right?” the four-time champion said on the eve of the new season in Australia
“The amount of money that has been invested as well into these regulations, they will be around for a while.
“So, you could have seen this coming. Suddenly now things are raised, it’s a bit late.”
One solution could be restricting the amount of electrical energy the hybrid system can deploy at any one time to spread the usage around the lap.
But with F1’s new generation of cars already expected to be multiple seconds off the pace of last year’s, Verstappen said such a solution would only result in slower lap times.
“I mean you can reduce the power, but then of course you also go slower in lap time, so I’m not sure,” he said. “It’s a difficult subject to actually say this is the best thing that we have at the moment.
“I guess that’s why they also just want to see how it goes here in the first place. But, yeah, it’s all pretty complicated.”
Albert Park is among four venues (including Jeddah, the Red Bull Ring and Monza) that has been earmarked as particularly challenging for energy management under the new rules.
Seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton said the variations between tracks will be extreme, meaning Sunday’s race in Australia may not provide a fair reflection of how races will play out across the season.
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“Some tracks you don’t have to do lift and coast [to harvest energy] for a single lap, and in some places you have to do a lot of lift and coast for a qualifying lap,” he said. “There can be a big difference between deployment, of a second.
“If you don’t lift in one corner, for example Turn 6 and Turn 5 here, if you take it flat or if you lift, it has a massive compound effect through the rest of the lap. You can do a good lap but you could be a second down because the deployment is off.”
Hamilton also stressed the importance of conveying the challenges faced by the drivers to F1’s audience.
“I just hope that Formula 1 is able to project that to the fans so they can understand what’s going on, because inside [the team] it’s a lot to fully understand it,” he added.
“I hope commentators come and go speak to the teams, maybe understand it a little bit more, so you’re not just throwing ideas out there about what we’re trying to do or what the challenges we are facing, because it’s no joke. It’s really, really challenging.”
There is a possibility Sunday’s race will throw up random results as teams scramble to get their heads around the best energy deployment strategies, providing a layer of entertainment that was not present under the previous regulations.
Williams driver Carlos Sainz said it is important to fully understand the positives and negatives from the opening three races before rushing into any regulation changes.
“It could go both ways, that’s why evaluating and trying to predict how it will be on TV before it even happens is not worth it,” he said. “Let’s see, whatever rules we’ve come up with for this year, let’s put them on track and then evaluate.
“And if there needs to be changes, that’s the only thing I’ve told Stefano and the FIA, is that we need to be open-minded in the first two or three races, because China will be different and Japan will be different again.
“Give it maybe two or three examples, and then if clearly there’s something off, something wrong, I hope we are able to change.”
