{"id":620220,"date":"2026-04-22T03:30:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T03:30:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/620220\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T03:30:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T03:30:15","slug":"f1s-latest-rule-tweaks-explained-in-plain-terms-plus-mario-andretti-wrote-a-column-for-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/620220\/","title":{"rendered":"F1\u2019s latest rule tweaks, explained in plain terms. Plus: Mario Andretti wrote a column for us!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Prime Tire Newsletter | This is The Athletic\u2019s F1 newsletter. Sign up here<\/a> to receive Prime Tire directly in your inbox twice a week during the season and weekly in the offseason.<\/p>\n

Welcome back to Prime Tire, where we have a satisfying GIF for you, courtesy of Alex Palou\u2019s pit crew at Long Beach on Sunday:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Come on. That\u2019s mesmerizing. (And it won him the race.)<\/p>\n

Anyway. I\u2019m Patrick, and Madeline Coleman will be along shortly. Let\u2019s get to it.<\/p>\n

A Sobering Reminder: Two races, 2 continents, 2 tragedies<\/p>\n

Driver Juha Miettinen\u00a0died after sustaining fatal injuries<\/a> at the Nordschleife during the 24 Hours of N\u00fcrburgring Qualifiers Race 1 on Saturday, following a multi-car crash.<\/p>\n

The following day, at Round 2 of the FIA CODASUR Rally Championship in Argentina, driver Didier Arias clipped a dirt mound and barrel-rolled into a spectator area<\/a>. Both Arias and his co-driver were uninjured, but one spectator died and two others were injured.<\/p>\n

Miettinen was 66. He was racing at the Nordschleife because that\u2019s what he loved to do. Someone in Argentina drove out to watch cars on a Sunday and didn\u2019t come home.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m reminded of the 2023 Australian Grand Prix, when a fan was left bleeding after being struck by debris. When\u00a0we contacted him for a story<\/a>, he said:<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s why we watch it, I guess. Not for crashes, but we watch it because it\u2019s extreme, because it\u2019s dangerous, because it\u2019s a car race with hunks of metal running around the track at 300 (kilometers) an hour.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no way that you can have that risk-free.\u201d<\/p>\n

He\u2019s right, of course \u2014\u00a0but it doesn\u2019t make weekends like this past one any easier to sit with.<\/p>\n

Rule Changes: Minor tweaks approved for the Miami GP<\/p>\n

F1\u2019s teams, manufacturers and governing body all agreed yesterday on\u00a0a package of rule changes for Miami<\/a>. Here are three key things they decided, explained as best I could in 50 words or fewer:<\/p>\n

Reducing the qualifying recharge limit.\u00a0The cars have been harvesting so much electrical energy mid-lap that drivers can\u2019t stay flat out through F1\u2019s greatest corners. (Suzuka\u2019s 130R became a recharging zone. A recharging zone! The indignity.) The new limit cuts how much energy can be recouped per lap, so drivers will actually have to drive.\u00a0Word count: 50 \ud83c\udf89<\/p>\n

What it won\u2019t fix:\u00a0the speed drop-offs on the straights that have become the regulations\u2019 most grating image. Less recharging means less energy overall, which means more of the lap spent without battery power.<\/p>\n

Increasing superclip power (250kW \u27a1\ufe0f 350kW).\u00a0Even at full throttle, the 2026 cars can slow themselves down to recharge their batteries. This is a maddening quirk behind the wheel, as you can imagine. This change makes the recharging happen faster, so the slowdown window shrinks.\u00a0Word count: 39 \ud83c\udf89<\/p>\n

What it doesn\u2019t fix:\u00a0The fundamental physics of circuits like Suzuka, which simply don\u2019t have enough hard braking zones to replenish what the engine spends.<\/p>\n

Capping Boost power in races.\u00a0One driver hits Boost. Suddenly, he\u2019s traveling 30 mph faster than the guy ahead of him, who used his Boost half a lap earlier and has nothing left. That speed differential is where\u00a0Ollie Bearman\u2019s 50G crash<\/a>\u00a0in Japan came from. The cap puts a ceiling on how fast one car can close on another. This one probably matters more than the others.\u00a0Word count: 62 \ud83d\ude2d<\/p>\n

One thing you should note:\u00a0These are\u00a0not\u00a0overhauls. They won\u2019t fundamentally change the way F1 goes racing this season. Like I warned last week\u00a0in our WhatsApp channel<\/a>, they\u2019re incremental tweaks on the margins rather than full-on \u201cBaby Out With Bathwater.\u201d The baby is still here, but the bathwater is fresh, and nobody is throwing anyone into anything yet \u2014 which is good, because\u00a0I hear the Miami GP marina is fake<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n Pauline Ballet \/ Formula 1 via Getty Images<\/p>\n

History: The first woman to drive a Mercedes F1 car<\/p>\n

Doriane Pin drove a Mercedes F1 car on Friday\u00a0and couldn\u2019t stop smiling<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Pin, the 2025 F1 Academy champion, nicknamed the \u201cPocket Rocket,\u201d was once\u00a0told she was too small to drive a go-kart<\/a>. On Friday, the 22-year-old completed 76 laps around Silverstone in Mercedes\u2019 2021 car and became the first woman ever to test for the team (and the first Frenchwoman to drive modern F1 machinery). Her father, her partner and her childhood best friend were all there to watch.<\/p>\n

Loved this detail:\u00a0Pin\u2019s fastest lap of the day was her last one.\u00a0She was still improving by lap 76, which either speaks to how steep the F1 learning curve is or to how much more she has to unlock. Probably both!<\/p>\n

Madeline\u2019s story is full of other fun details, including that Pin brought notes on braking advice from George Russell and Kimi Antonelli, and got emotional when she saw the car with her racing number on it for the first time.<\/p>\n

The path here wasn\u2019t straightforward. But she\u2019s here. \u201cMaybe I can have another one if they are happy,\u201d Pin said afterward.<\/p>\n

Read Madeline\u2019s full story here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And now, off to the paddock for more from Madeline:<\/p>\n

Inside the Paddock with Madeline Coleman: The human side of this \u2018spring break\u2019<\/p>\n

Sustainability is a hot topic within the F1 paddock, but one aspect that can be overlooked is how the humans of the sport maintain some sense of healthy balance amid (what once was) a 24-race global calendar.<\/p>\n

The 2026 F1 season, before the cancellation of the Bahrain and Saudi Arabian GPs, posed a monumental task for the paddock to overcome. Once Lando Norris secured his first world championship in Abu Dhabi on Dec. 7, the teams carried out postseason tests in the subsequent days. This is the norm. But the teams needed to turn their 2026 cars around quite quickly, all while also abiding by the operational regulations.<\/p>\n

Teams face two shutdowns a year: a 14-day stretch in July and\/or August and a nine-day stretch in late December. In 2026, that\u2019ll start on Dec. 24.<\/p>\n

Upon returning in the new year, the Barcelona shakedown week was a mere few weeks away, followed by two three-day preseason testing sessions in Bahrain come February. The offseason practically disappeared in preparation for this regulation overhaul.<\/p>\n

During his team\u2019s season launch in January, Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies even said, \u201cWe would not want that to be the setup every offseason.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think in hindsight, it\u2019s something we probably have missed as a sport when we went into these regulations,\u201d\u00a0he added. \u201cIt felt completely natural to say, \u2018Well, we used to have three days (of) tests. Let\u2019s do a lot more testing. Let\u2019s test in January. Let\u2019s do three sessions.\u2019 But it\u2019s true that, as a result, the level of stress on the people is very high.\u201d<\/p>\n

If the calendar stayed as it was, every month in 2026 would\u2019ve had F1 cars on track in some fashion, whether it be testing or competition.\u00a0But April is now race-free, and\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0given team personnel a rare opportunity to recharge the batteries (no pun intended) and reset ahead of the Miami Grand Prix.<\/p>\n

Work is still ongoing back at the factories as\u00a0teams look for ways to improve their car packages<\/a>, and\u00a0senior writer Luke Smith recently wrote<\/a>\u00a0more on how the drivers and F1 teams are spending their breaks.<\/p>\n

But five weeks is a long time without a race. Kimi Antonelli said Friday during a media roundtable call, \u201cI\u2019m not gonna lie. The break, on one side, has been good, but now it starts to feel a bit too long.\u201d And it\u2019s a sentiment many fans share. The Miami Grand Prix takes place next week, but it is the only race in an eight-week stretch.<\/p>\n

Back over to Patrick!<\/p>\n

On Line 1: Mario Andretti wrote a column for us<\/p>\n

\u201cI despise mediocrity.\u201d<\/p>\n

When you find out\u00a0Mario Andretti is writing something for\u00a0The Athletic<\/a>, you assume you\u2019ll get something like that as the lede. He didn\u2019t disappoint!<\/p>\n

The whole piece is like that.\u00a0One of the greatest American drivers of all time (and one of the driving forces behind\u00a0Cadillac\u2019s return to the F1 grid<\/a>) wrote about what it actually takes to stay at the top\u00a0for\u00a0our Peak desk<\/a>.<\/p>\n

My favorite bit: His crew chief once told him beating A.J. Foyt was \u201cout of the question.\u201d He went and beat him. My takeaway: The gap between competitive and dominant is often less about talent (though Andretti had plenty) than about refusing to accept the ceiling other people set for you. You push forward anyway.
\nAnother great quote from Andretti: \u201cThings that are easy, anyone can do them,\u201d the 86-year-old writes. \u201cThat\u2019s not satisfying.\u201d I will play devil\u2019s advocate: Has he ever peeled the plastic off a new TV? Twirled a walking stick like it\u2019s Darth Maul\u2019s double-bladed lightsaber? Those are easy\u00a0and\u00a0satisfying. Andretti is a legend, but I\u2019m not sure he knows what he\u2019s talking about here.<\/p>\n

Read Andretti\u2019s column here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Back over to Patrick!<\/p>\n

Outside the Points<\/p>\n

\ud83c\udfcd\ufe0f Liberty Media wants to do to MotoGP what it did with F1. (Make a bazillion moneys.)\u00a0Adam Crafton has the full story<\/a>\u00a0on what that playbook looks like the second time around, and whether the \u201cDrive to Survive\u201d lightning can strike twice.<\/p>\n

\ud83e\udd96 Haas arrived in Japan with a 10-foot Godzilla model, a special livery and a car that had quietly put itself fourth in the constructors\u2019 championship. Luke Smith spent time in the garage at Suzuka\u00a0watching it all unfold<\/a>. A lovely piece of paddock access, and a reminder that the smallest team on the grid is having the most fun right now.<\/p>\n

\ud83d\udd0b Mercedes has won every race this season and leads the constructors\u2019 by 45 points. Toto Wolff would\u00a0nonetheless like everyone to know<\/a>\u00a0that any midseason engine upgrades for rivals had better not be too good. The FIA\u2019s catch-up system was designed as a \u201ccatch-up mechanism,\u201d he said, \u201cnot a leapfrog mechanism.\u201d So like Heinz, not Frogger. (If you immediately got that joke, shame on all of us.)<\/p>\n

\ud83d\udceb Love Prime Tire? Check out The Athletic\u2019s other newsletters<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Prime Tire Newsletter | This is The Athletic\u2019s F1 newsletter. Sign up here to receive Prime Tire directly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":620221,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,578,576,577,82],"class_list":["post-620220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=620220"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620220\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/620221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=620220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=620220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=620220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}