Max Verstappen, who labelled the rules as \u201canti-racing\u201d,<\/a> Domenicali says he has seen nothing to be worried about yet.<\/p>\n\u201cI don’t understand what is all the panicking going around,\u201d said Domenicali from the sidelines of this week\u2019s Bahrain test.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere will be incredible racing, there will be a lot of action, and that’s the most important thing.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd in any case, if something is not as we want, I think the credibility of the sport is we can sit around with the responsible people, that are the technical people and the FIA, to find solutions. So I’m not worried at all.\u201d<\/p>\n
No over-reaction<\/p>\n
Domenicali says that F1 needs to see how the new rules work in action in the early races before deciding if tweaks need to be made \u2013 so it does not end up in a scenario of knee-jerk responses that make things worse.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the F1 commission the other day, there has been an open discussion to put on the table possible solutions to address this kind of issue,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cTherefore, we are going to have a meeting before the start of the season to avoid over-reaction, because it is pretty clear that we need to avoid over-reaction. So that’s why I say we need to stay calm.\u201d<\/p>\n
But, despite warning against an over-reaction from some early races \u2013 especially those at venues where energy management could be a major headache like Melbourne and Jeddah \u2013 Domenicali is clear that F1 must act if major problems arise.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me what has to be protected, and if this will be not the case we need to intervene, is having great racing, great overtaking opportunity, and a great challenge that you can give to the drivers to show if they are the best,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo if these points will not be taken the right way, of course we need to, in a way, intervene and react immediately.\u201d<\/p>\n
Driver and fan response<\/p>\n
Domenicali is well aware of the criticisms that drivers have thrown at the new regulations \u2013 which included Verstappen\u2019s astonishing attack on the 2026 cars last week.<\/p>\n
Having spent time speaking to drivers at the Bahrain test, including Verstappen, Domenicali thinks that views are fast changing and that resistance to the rules will quickly fade away as people get used to them.<\/p>\n
\u201cMax is incredible, and he has a way of saying something that could be sometimes interpreted in a certain way,\u201d said Domenicali.<\/p>\n
\u201cI guarantee to you that Max wants and cares about F1 more than anyone else. He has a way of putting the point that he wants to say in a certain way.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut we had a very constructive meeting. He will have a very constructive meeting also with the Federation [FIA], to highlight what is his point of view of what he believes needs to be done to keep the driving style at the centre of the approach.\u201d<\/p>\n
While the level of energy management and speed drops in high-speed corners triggered by super clipping has drawn criticism from those in the paddock, Domenicali does not think such technical aspects will worry a majority of fans.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is why I went out today half an hour to understand the feeling,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course, the most sophisticated fans will understand the differences in certain situations, but I guarantee that the 99.9% of the fans will not feel that, because it’s impossible.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd therefore I want to be positive in that respect. And, as I said, if something has to be rectified, there will be the time and the consideration that we can do together as a system to react.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Formula 1 CEO Stefano Domenicali says changes will be made to the 2026 rules if energy management ruins…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":491471,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,817,813,816,85],"class_list":["post-491470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=491470"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491470\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/491471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=491470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=491470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=491470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}