Formula 1’s new cars and the consequent racing spectacle they’ve produced have dominated discussion since the season started this month.
The dominant teams of the previous era, McLaren and Red Bull, have been displaced by Mercedes and Ferrari, while new manufacturer Audi is racing in the midfield and Aston Martin’s era with Honda has started disastrously.
But it’s how the cars overtake and how the drivers operate them that has captured the attention. The drivers out in front have few complaints, those behind do.
It’s not just paddock politicking at play. After four-time world champion Max Verstappen called those who enjoy the new racing “not real” fans, the debate intensified. You could say the sport’s soul is under the microscope.
The Athletic’s F1 experts, Madeline Coleman, Alex Kalinauckas and Luke Smith, discuss the main issues.
Why are drivers and fans split on the new style of racing?
Luke Smith: It comes down to the philosophical question of what F1 should be — which, naturally, is highly subjective! There is heavy focus on energy management and battery usage, which some think undermines the quality of the racing, particularly overtaking.
Others are hailing the close wheel-to-wheel action, with yo-yo, back-and-forth overtakes, as exciting and enjoyable. Lewis Hamilton, now in his 20th season, said in China this was the best racing he’d experienced. Really, it comes down to what one believes makes F1, F1.
Madeline Coleman: Nearly every aspect of the cars changed with this regulation overhaul, altering how the racing looks and sounds.
Rather than pushing throughout the race and pulling off a risky pass with late braking, it’s now down to strategic electrical energy deployment, the use of engine modes that temporarily raise energy levels. There are those who admire the old strategy and are wondering if overtaking has become too artificial.
Alex Kalinauckas: While a lot of this is the typical gamesmanship that forms the “Piranha Club” ethos, the drivers are pretty much united that the new cars don’t test their skills of pushing to the limit, essentially braking as late as possible and charging on qualifying laps. Again, the problem comes down to electrical energy making up nearly 50 percent of the power from the new engines. It is faster over a lap to be slower in a fast corner and spending the energy saved on a subsequent straight.
What did you think of the racing in Australia and China?
Smith: I’ve enjoyed it. Qualifying in Australia worried me, especially seeing the onboard of George Russell’s pole lap with the massive drop in speeds at the fastest points of the track. But then the race delivered a terrific scrap between Russell and Charles Leclerc. We got the same again in China, with the Leclerc/Hamilton fight making for very exciting watching.
The improved agility and nimbleness of the new cars has pleasantly surprised me. You can really see the drivers considering their racecraft and where they’re placing their cars in a battle, as well as seizing the moment with opportune overtakes, such as Hamilton’s move on Russell on the first lap of the China sprint.
Coleman: I’m feeling more positive with each race. I understood the drivers’ criticisms post-race in Melbourne, but I enjoyed China. All jokes aside with the boost and overtake mode’s Mario Kart comparison, it’ll take time to get used to how energy deployment affects passing. I appreciate the strategy element and how there’s another level of race management to consider.
But the big question is whether skill still wins out or has that been redefined to focus more heavily on strategy?
The start of the 2025 Abu Dhabi GP. (Rudy Carezzevoli / Getty Images)
Kalinauckas: I’ve enjoyed the multiple position swaps — sometimes even across a single lap — seen in the race-lead battles in Australia and China. From the outside, they look as they should — on the edge at great speed and with a healthy display of driver nous required to pull a pass off and then make it stick, even if that’s different to how it was before. But some have appeared too easy.
Overall, though, I’m much more concerned about the destruction of qualifying as a spectacle.
Drivers can now go faster making a mistake in a corner and lifting off the throttle because the energy consequently saved can be used elsewhere, usually on the straight parts of a track. That’s not F1. Fixing that and keeping the racing interesting would solve a lot of the issues.
How does this season’s racing compare to previous eras?
Smith: Each rule cycle brings with it unintended consequences, be it dirty air making it hard to follow other cars or the need to manage tires so carefully that it was impossible to go on the attack all the time.
The tire comparison is important, as it shows the sport has always needed a degree of management. The battery focus this year is just another example of that. I can’t recall either Australia or China previously being this exciting when it came to overtaking or on-track action.
Max Verstappen has been one of the most vocal critics of this new era of cars. (Mark Thompson / Getty Images)
Coleman: What I loved about the last generation of cars was the close, hard racing. The Hamilton-Leclerc wheel-to-wheel battle in China helped lessen my concerns about whether that could happen in this era.
The new rules emphasize a different skill set and adds another level of management into race strategy. It is not perfect, but there’s potential. It will be interesting to see what the racing looks like as the season evolves, and what it means for the future of motorsport, too.
Kalinauckas: Compared to how it ended in 2025, what the sport now has is a “pick your poison” on artificial ways to spice up racing.
Drag reduction system (DRS) was introduced to increase overtaking in 2011, with a heavy focus on high-degrading tires coming at the same time. Those were both artificial elements. The tire management factor hasn’t gone away.
Those came in after a generation of high-speed pursuits the drivers loved in the 1990s and 2000s, except this produced far too many processions.
With aerodynamic cars — as F1 has used for nearly 60 years — you cannot expect to have consistently dynamic racing without something that spices up the show. The fastest cars should qualify ahead and then race clear, which is what we would have now, leading possibly to a different debate overall, if the Ferraris weren’t so good at starts.
What was your reaction to Verstappen saying those who enjoy the racing style are “not real” fans and don’t “understand racing”?
Smith: It was quite harsh. I’ve got an immense amount of respect for Verstappen, he’s one of the all-time greats and his honesty is a great quality. To deliver such a scathing take after a miserable performance on the track, with Red Bull seemingly far behind Mercedes and Ferrari, can make it sound like sour grapes. I’m sure he’d have the same view even if he was in a winning car, but there’s important context to keep in mind.
Coleman: He is entitled to his opinion but it felt a bit below the belt, even within the context of him having just retired from the Chinese Grand Prix. Verstappen has made his reservations about these engines known since 2023, when he was dominating, so it dispels the questions about whether he’d be making these criticisms if he were winning. Fans enjoy the sport for different reasons. To criticize that feels harsh.
Kalinauckas: I take his point, but I don’t like the way it belittles people taking enjoyment from a sporting spectacle. I agree with plenty of what Verstappen says, but broadsides such as this undermine the wider point. F1 has always had to reinvent itself as technology and society changes. This is just the latest example. There were complaints in the 1970s that things weren’t exactly like they were in the 1950s.
Tribalism isn’t useful. The teams that aren’t winning need their drivers to lobby for rule changes, and there is an element of that at play. Although, I believe he’d be equally critical if he were driving a 2026 Mercedes and not a Red Bull.
Do you think action needs to be taken on the new rules? If so, what form should this take?
Smith: If there are small tweaks that could be made to improve matters, then great. A reduction in battery deployment may ease some concerns, while action to prevent the superclipping problem that featured a lot in Australia would also be good. But it’s tinkering, not massive changes, that’s required. Particularly this early into a new era.
Coleman: Being open to discussions and making changes is critical, but there shouldn’t be knee-jerk reactions. It’ll take time to fully understand the new rules.
Kalinauckas: Qualifying needs to be fixed, and urgently. An idea already being discussed in the paddock is reducing how much overall engine power comes from the electrical systems and increasing the proportion of power from the internal combustion element. This would make the cars a few seconds a lap slower, but the drivers could push much harder over a lap. Unfortunately, it’s not a straightforward fix and there would likely be lobbying against it from those that are leading now. But that would seems like a better balance.
The start of the 2025 Bahrain GP. (Mark Thompson / Getty Images)
How will the cancellation of the races in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia impact the season?
Smith: It’s a welcome break in the calendar after a very small winter break. Aston Martin and Williams will definitely want to use that time to try and make up for their rough starts. It can also give everyone a chance to cool down and take an accurate temperature check on the mood around these new regulations, away from the hubbub of race weekends. This will be a good opportunity to pause and really think.
Coleman: It’s 30-plus days for the sport to collectively take a breath, reset and look at the regulations (and for the teams to review their respective car packages) without the heightened emotions that come with living race to race. But it does shorten the season to 22 grands prix and limit track time, which is where teams are truly able to see whether their simulation data translates to on-track performance.
Kalinauckas: The teams can learn more of the theory, but there’s a new provision to take into account. The engine manufacturers that will be behind the overall leader in performance by at least two percent come the season’s sixth round will have an opportunity to try and catch up via additional kit tests and hardware changes. Manufacturers even further behind will be able to make double the number of changes — there are additional chances to upgrade engines after rounds 12 and 18 for those still calculated to be behind.
Round six would’ve been the Miami GP in early May, but this is now round four. So far, the FIA has not said it will alter the deadlines for what is known in the rules as the additional development and upgrade opportunities (ADUO) system.
That actually hurts the manufacturer that is most behind, Honda, and its Aston works team, as it must complete a greater portion of the season before making hardware changes. That’s unless the rule gets changed to reflect the shorter calendar.
Was this debate predictable? And why has it become such a hot topic this season?
Smith: Every time there’s a big rule change, there’s always criticism. I remember Luca di Montezemolo, the former chairman of Ferrari, hitting out at the new cars in 2014 and calling it “taxi-cab driving.” In 2022, porpoising — where ground effect caused the cars to bounce up and down — became a classic case of teams being diametrically opposed in a debate amid varying levels of performance and claims of safety risks. In what has been the greatest rule change in a generation, with both the engines and the car designs being overhauled for the same season, this kind of fallout was inevitable.
Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg wins the 2014 Australian GP, the first race following the last time F1 changed its engine rules. (William West / AFP / Getty Images)
Coleman: It was entirely predictable opinions would be divided — among the drivers, teams and fanbase. Some aspects of this overhaul, such as the adjustments to the racing, overlap with already touchy topics. When DRS was introduced, there were criticisms about it making overtaking too artificial which, as Alex said, are similar to the criticisms around the boost and overtake modes.
Kalinauckas: As Madeline has pointed out, it was Verstappen who led the warning on these engines back in 2023. That was thought to be Red Bull politicking as it went about building its first engine program, but Verstappen’s words were prescient and the Red Bull engine, though it isn’t exactly Honda, is bad.
There was a negative reaction to adopting hybrid engines, but nothing like this. I wonder if some elements, such as the ADUO system, also highlight a rules weakness that wasn’t there previously and so some teams are agitating to exploit this.
