In Japan<\/a>, it celebrated a 279% increase in overtakes compared to last year \u2013 106 from 28.<\/p>\n The previous race in China<\/a>, by contrast, saw the smallest increase of the three 2026 races, with 146 from last year\u2019s 72.<\/p>\n In theory, that should mean Australia and Japan were better races than China.<\/p>\n In practice, much of what filled the overtaking tally was cars with charged batteries catching cars that had depleted theirs, surging past on the straight and then being re-passed when the energy dynamic reversed a lap later. Position changes have accumulated, but racing, in any meaningful sense, has been intermittent.<\/p>\n The 2026 cars have now completed three races, and already the framework governing them has divided the audience.<\/a> The core issue is familiar: that the regulations can produce passing moves that look dramatic on screen but feel engineered rather than earned.<\/p>\n What a pass actually means<\/p>\n The problem with using overtaking as a quality measure of racing is that not all passes are created equal.<\/p>\n The 2026 cars can at least run closer to each other<\/p>\n \n Grand Prix Photo\n <\/p>\n There is a huge difference between a driver who spends 20 laps nursing tyres, finding a gap in strategy and making a move stick under braking, and a driver who opens a power-boost mode, applies a temporary electrical advantage and glides past before the next corner.<\/p>\n Both register as one overtake, but only one of them involves actual racing. The former is what many would consider artificial. The latter is what fans consider real racing.<\/p>\n Two-time champion and the most experienced driver in F1 history, Fernando Alonso<\/a>, spoke with precision about this before the 2026 season began.<\/p>\n He identified what he saw as the central problem with the new overtaking architecture: that the energy cost of making a pass might deter drivers from attempting one in the first place.<\/p>\n \u201cMaybe there is not an incentive to really make the pass, because you will both lose time,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n It was an inversion of the usual complaint, not that overtaking would be too hard, but that the conditions might make it strategically irrational. That\u2019s why, after the first three races, some drivers have complained that they have been overtaking without actually wanting to.<\/p>\n The 2025 Japanese Grand Prix<\/a> offers a useful point of contrast. By the standards of metric-chasing, it was a dull race: low overtake count, long periods of stasis, no safety car drama.<\/p>\n By the standards of actual competition, it was compelling: Max Verstappen<\/a> driving perfect flat-out laps to keep the two faster McLarens at bay.<\/p>\n The McLaren<\/a> drivers were unable to pass but never far enough away for Verstappen to relax. Nothing was decided until the final minutes, and the overtake count told you almost nothing about that.<\/p>\n Without overtaking up front, was Suzuka boring in 2025?<\/p>\n \n Grand Prix Photo\n <\/p>\n For the most part, the race is remembered as dull, but in the context of the artificial racing of 2026, some now view it under a different light.<\/p>\n Shanghai and the complicated case<\/p>\n The Chinese Grand Prix produced the kind of sequence that makes the overtaking debate genuinely hard to resolve.<\/p>\n Lewis Hamilton<\/a> and Charles Leclerc<\/a> spent a significant portion of the race going wheel-to-wheel, exchanging positions multiple times, including a switchback of passes through Turns 9 and 10, and making brief contact that Hamilton later described as \u201cjust a kiss.\u201d<\/p>\n From the outside, it was very entertaining Formula 1 racing.<\/p>\n![\"Liam](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/20260329F1-0227-800x450.jpg\"\/)
<\/p>\n![\"Max](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/20250406F1-0256-800x450.jpg\"\/)
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![\"Lewis](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/20260315F1-0103-800x450.jpg\"\/)
<\/p>\n![\"Lando](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/20260329F1-0232-800x450.jpg\"\/)
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