While it’s hoped that the tweaks agreed on between the FIA and Formula 1’s teams for Miami should reduce some of the more troublesome elements of the 2026 regulations, the door is not closed on the potential for hardware changes for the new powertrains.
The reduction in energy harvesting and extension of super clipping to 350kW should minimise some of the more visual quirks of the 2026-spec cars; lifting and coasting should be rare, and the taper-off of speed will also be reduced.
Data traces seen by Autosport demonstrate that, although there is still some degree of top-speed drop-off at the end of longer straights, the speed traces for the majority of braking zones after short-to-medium-length acceleration areas should tend towards more conventional levels.
Although simulations show that these changes should cover off some of the complaints, and reinstate the drivers’ ability to affect qualifying beyond simply picking the right deployment areas, the effect won’t be clear until after Miami and Montreal.
McLaren team principal Andrea Stella says that a more ‘substantial’ improvement would likely involve changes to the 2026 powertrain hardware – suggesting increased battery capacity or increased fuel flow for the internal combustion engine to up-rate the mechanical power generated by the car.
Yet, he warned that this would likely not be an option for this season – albeit with discussions ongoing over how to improve the current power unit formula.
“I think if the FIA left you entirely free to use the power unit or within the regulations that we have had for the first three races, the reality is that teams would use this to make the car as fast as possible in terms of lap time,” Stella said.
Andrea Stella, McLaren
Photo by: Kym Illman / Getty Images
“Lap time doesn’t necessarily take with this sort of objective some aspects of natural driving, or driving flat out in qualifying or not having a very high differential of speed while two cars are racing in the race.
“I think these adjustments are required to make sure that teams operate the power unit in a way that improves some of these objectives, driving flat out, reducing the speed differential in the race.
“I think in order to have a more substantial improvement whereby we reduce some of the, for instance, a shortage from an energy point of view, or the fact that in high-speed corners sometimes you don’t have much deceleration between the braking point and the mid-corner speed, there may be some need to act on the hardware.
“But once you act on the hardware from a battery capacity point of view, for instance, or in terms of the ICE accepting more fuel flow, then this requires more time than from one race to the other and possibly more time even than from one season to the other.
“There’s certainly conversations already happening as to how the hardware can be more fundamentally improved, such that the regulations allow more margin to fulfil the various objectives which are required for the spectacle and entertainment, but also for making sure that the drivers can drive in a traditional sense of pushing the car to the limit.”
McLaren’s technical director of performance Mark Temple added that there would still be some cases – even with the Miami tweaks – where the drivers might have to take a slightly counterintuitive approach on more ‘energy-starved’ circuits.
Yet, he added that this was not necessarily any different to drivers fuel-saving in races across F1’s history, and felt that the more egregious elements of the 2026 technical regulations may have been addressed by the recently announced changes.
Charles Leclerc, Ferrari, Oscar Piastri, McLaren
Photo by: Simon Galloway / LAT Images via Getty Images
“I think there are still some aspects of driving with the new PUs which will remain because it is still an energy-starved…perhaps too strong a word, but a formula where you want to use the energy you have in the most efficient places,” Temple explained.
“It’s slightly different to previous years where you could disregard it and just in a way not worry about the power unit and the energy available.
“That said, we have had in the previous set of regulations situations where fuel management was a very significant part of how you drove the car and how you raced to a greater degree in some cases than we’ve seen with the electrical energy management.
“It’s just that in the last couple of years of regulations the fuel management wasn’t a big factor. It was still a small factor in racing.
“So, yes, there are still some aspects that remain but the more abstract ones like this kind of lifting off, being inefficient and wanting to come back on power, some of those things that were particularly counterintuitive I think should be eliminated – or at least, the aim is to eliminate as many of those as we can.
“As I said earlier, there may be some things that we haven’t anticipated that we’ll need to review and then revisit.”
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