The new rules for F1 2026 were met with a lukewarm response as George Russell and Mercedes took victory at last weekend’s Australian Grand Prix.
The first race of the new era did nothing to ease fears that Formula 1 has just taken a very wrong turn. Will the pressure grow on the FIA to act?
Formula 1? More like Formula Net Zero
A version of this article originally appeared in PlanetF1.com’s conclusions from the 2026 Australian Grand Prix
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What is the essence of Formula 1?
Different strokes for different folks, of course, yet there is an argument that the true appeal of F1 lies not in the cars, the drivers, the glamour or the sound, but the circuits. Specifically the high-speed corners.
It is for this very reason that Eau Rouge, and the question of whether it could be taken flat, was for many years the great barometer of the performance capabilities of a Formula 1 car.
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The early evidence suggests that the 2026 cars will not be going flat through Eau Rouge, the first in a generation to fail that test, when F1 visits Spa in July.
No, 2026-spec F1 is more likely to view Eau Rouge as a chance to super clip – potentially demanding a downshift and maybe even a dab of the brakes for good measure – to save up enough energy for the rest of the Kemmel straight that follows.
That, by any measure, would not be Formula 1.
Yet nothing much we have seen so far in 2026 resembles Formula 1 as we knew it.
Do not be fooled by what developed into a relatively normal weekend in Melbourne, where the ‘battle’ between George Russell and Charles Leclerc in the early laps was in reality nothing more than the ebb and flow of energy management playing out for the first time in a live race.
Trust the engineers to put a stop to that sort of thing soon enough.
For the abiding image of the 2026 Australian Grand Prix, look instead to the onboard footage from qualifying of the cars running out of puff on the approach to the Turns 9/10 chicane, one of the signature corners on the calendar now reduced to a charging station.
This is not progress we’re witnessing here, but sacrilege. Formula 1 was not so broken before that it required this silly overcorrection.
After Max Verstappen, one of the few with the courage of his convictions, spoke his mind in pre-season testing, a growing number of drivers are beginning to find their voices in openly criticising the new regulations.
The general consensus?
The weird, shape-shifting, passion-killing horrors of 2026 are the unwanted answer to a question nobody asked and enough to turn cold the blood of anyone with motor racing in their bones.
This is not a situation like 2014. There is little hope that the new rules will simply just ‘bed in’ after a few races when the sport, and the challenge it poses, has been changed so fundamentally.
As noted in PlanetF1.com’s conclusions from Bahrain testing, F1 has committed an act of self-sabotage with a set of rules that achieve nothing but pander to the eco-centric trend of the age.
Formula 1, you say? More like Formula Net Zero.
Indeed, the great irony of these sustainable new regulations is that they are in fact rapidly proving to be the exact opposite.
They cannot – and surely, if the sport knows what’s good for it, will not – remain as they are for very long.
The people have spoken: Reader reaction to the F1 2026 rules after Australian GP
Craig Thornton: The noise at the starting grid was enough to make you cry
Corstiaan: Good article!!! Now please continue to raise your voice PlanetF1.
I know you have to live from it all, but how Brundle & co can live with themselves is beyond me. Trying to spice up this flawed product lap after lap is a true embarrassment.
Slug Ger: Here lies Formula 1, the sport that once celebrated drivers wrestling cars at ten tenths on pure, unrelenting power, now quietly euthanised by irrelevant power unit regulations.
The glorious days of flat-out racing were replaced with a tedious energy-management simulator, where drivers spend more time harvesting battery juice like reluctant accountants than actually racing, turning every lap into a glorified coast-and-boost parade that drains the life out of overtaking and drama.
Survived by a handful of fans who still remember when engines screamed instead of whispered about battery percentages, F1 departs this world having traded its soul for “sustainability” — and somehow managed to make the racing slower, duller, and far less relevant in the process.
Doug deep: There is only one conclusion. These new regs are utterly ridiculous.
Piastri crashing out before getting started due to the car, the team, the engineers having no idea when the battery performance might just jump up higher from zero to nowhere.
Lift & coast was evidently heard. The slowing down through qualifying & race due to trying to recharge the batteries, SMH.
DRS was bad with it’s fake overtaking. We have a take your pick of the fake overtaking moves now, but only if you can charge the formula E battery series that is now F1.
I’m pretty sure many others like me, who have watched F1 for many decades, look at this shower of ship, and will just not bother. F1 has become impossible to watch.
Micky Louse: Yes Formula Net Zero is the best name for this class of racing, watching a car being passed by a much greater speed only to do the opposite a few corners later is just fakery.
Someone noted that there were just as many overtakes as last year, maybe, but they were mostly the result of high power deployment versus recharging.
This is no longer the pinnacle of motorsport, may as well call it E Sport and give the title to the software programmer.
Ross Blanco: Watching cars powering down the straights used to be like watching a plane speeding down the runway for takeoff now it’s like watching a plane decelerating after landing.
Anthony Andrews: The race starts even in the dry are simply dangerous and will result in many serious crashes this season. So much for driver safety… expecting at least one permanent retirement this year.
Mar Bakershaker: I agree about the new formula. I don’t like the electrical boost and never understood the criticism of DRS. I thought it worked.
It was fun to have to get within a second of the car in front and work up to an overtake. The length of the DRS could be changed to make it tight to get ahead before the corner and so there was lots of overtaking in to corners with the cars being on the edge.
Melbourne seemed flat and soft. You could tell they couldn’t push for a whole lap. The talent lives in those margins. Hopefully it’s a bit of an anomaly. We will see.
Conto Dorro: It wasn’t as bad as I feared, but it wasn’t great either.
I don’t like that they’re shouting about having over a hundred overtakes like it’s all that matters when most of those overtakes were about as dramatic as me passing a lorry in my Volvo on the motorway. Little skill involved.
Dave G: Oliver, thank you so much for the Formula Net Zero part. The hybrid approach is proving to be a disaster for F1. Let’s hope another major change is coming for 2028-29 with engines back to ICE with alternative fuels.
JvonL: Welcome to the Battery Management Championship. Having watched F1 since 1962, this is a joke.
Edv: Indeed Formula net zero.
The chaos of the first 10 laps were brought up by all the promotors of this Mario Kart racing. Look what happened in the last 30 laps = absolutely nothing. That’s what we can expect for the rest of the season. Chaos and safety issues at the start, because some teams having smaller turbo’s and then a procession. What a prospect…
Mark: I totally enjoyed it, lots of overtaking and close racing. The start was ok as well and teams and drivers are bound to get to more used to it.
Gerard Baarslag: Pretty well nailed it in this article.
I’m not sure why F1 management is so obsessed with the whole hybrid and battery technology. I understand Formula E is gaining in popularity however I don’t think the 2 sports are competing with each other. If anything they should/could be complimenting each other.
I would much prefer F1 to focus on cleaner and more efficient ICE’s and fuel development and leave electric motors to Formula E.
Agnostos: Harvesting as if we are farmers; energy management as if we are an electricity company.
Deployment as if I am at the army; LiCo as if I am at the national highway and I try to go from A to B at lowest consumption possible
Super Clipping, well we are Super Mario now?
Downshifting in the straights? Well is this a good lesson to drivers like us, shall we mimic that? When a normal driver finds this obscure, how a racing driver views it?
Straight Line Mode and Boost. So instead of a driver with skills we only need a monkey to push the button?
FIA and F1, do you not see the obvious? The majority of people watching and loving F1, sees superheroes, who when driving a racing car do things that we simple drivers find relevant with good driving, but they do it 10 times better.
In addition we like them because they are human, they have their moments, their nerves, sometimes they do unreasonable things.
Which of the above list is relevant to an average driver? Why should I consider F1 cars and driving heroes when I see a laptop on wheels going round, managed by a computer and have the appeal of fake passes from Super Mario?
Bloomingo: “..For the abiding image of the 2026 Australian Grand Prix, look instead to the onboard footage from qualifying of the cars running out of puff on the approach to the Turns 9/10 chicane, one of the signature corners on the calendar now reduced to a charging station”
CHARGING STATION – Haha that got me in splits
Keith Smith: Totally agree with the last paragraph, the battle at the front was initially exciting, but when you realised what was going on and nothing to do with, up until now, what is accepted as driving ability, but just battery deployment followed by exhaustion, it was rather ridiculous.
There’s no advantage to being the last of the late brakers and keeping the car under control through sheer skill because it never happens, with the engine clipping to recharge at every corner.
Your comment is under moderation M: I like the new rules, so far. They are much better than the doom predictions said they would be.
I don’t understand how F1 fans can be outraged over cars (potentially) not going flat out through Eau Rouge when Liberty Media is taking Spa Francorchamps off the calendar anyway. It’s like your ok with losing $100 but DEVASTATED by losing $10
Blazethe1st: Formula LiCo is not great, i’m out.
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