MIAMI — Lewis Hamilton has said he and his fellow Formula 1 drivers deserve a \u201cseat at the table\u201d in future decisions about rule changes the sport might commit to going forward.<\/p>\n
F1\u2019s 2026 season has started under a cloud of controversy due to the sport\u2019s new regulations, which have been widely criticised by the sport\u2019s existing drivers.<\/p>\n
The sport\u2019s new V6 hybrid turbo engines have placed an unprecedented focus on electrification and has made generating and then utilising battery power more important than ever before.<\/p>\n
Four-time world champion Max Verstappen has called the new formula \u201canti-racing,\u201d likened the new cars to Mario Kart and has suggested he dislikes the new cars so much it might be enough to make him quit — two-time world champion Fernando Alonso has rechristened the sport\u2019s new era \u201cthe battery world championship.\u201d<\/p>\n
The new rules package was agreed on by the sport\u2019s major stakeholders — the teams, existing manufacturers and new ones such as Audi, which was convinced to join in 2026 on the promise of road relevant hybrid engines, Formula 1 itself and the governing FIA, but drivers had no say.<\/p>\n
Speaking ahead of Sunday\u2019s Miami Grand Prix, seven-time champion Hamilton, the sport\u2019s most decorated driver, said that needs to change.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll the drivers we do work together, we all meet — but the fact is we don\u2019t have a seat at the table,\u201d Hamilton said. \u201cWe do engage with the FIA and F1, F1\u2019s more often a little bit more responsive.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut being that we\u2019re not stakeholders — we don\u2019t have a seat at the table currently, which I think needs to change. I say to them, when I was doing the Pirelli [tyre] test, \u2018you guys should come and speak to us and collaborate with us, we don\u2019t want to be slagging off the Pirelli tyres, we know you can build a good product.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cBut their feedback will be coming from people who have never driven a car before. Speak to us, we\u2019ll work hand in hand, we can work together to approach the FIA so we can get a better product. And the same with F1: \u2018we\u2019re here to work with you. We don\u2019t want to be slating our sport. We want the sport to succeed and so we need to be working together.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cBut it\u2019s like a [broken] record — you keep doing it and it\u2019s like small baby steps each time. But I have no doubt [we are aligned].\u201d<\/p>\n
– Max Verstappen: \u2018Big changes\u2019 needed to regulations, new tweaks only a \u2018tickle\u2019- Miami GP: What we learned before F1\u2019s break — and why Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes face U.S. test- Miami Grand Prix 2026: Race and F1 sprint start times, how to watch, full schedule, predictions<\/p>\n
Four-time world champion Verstappen echoed Hamilton\u2019s sentiment.<\/p>\n
Asked if drivers should be listened to more often, he said: \u201cI hope more and more. I\u2019m sure that we can have really good input about that. I think if we would have had that five, maybe a bit before, like five, six years ago, then we probably wouldn\u2019t have been in the state that we are in now.\u201d<\/p>\n
The main collective voice drivers currently have is the long-running Grand Prix Drivers\u2019 Association (GPDA), but it is has usually acted as a conventional union advocating for driver matters such as safety and clarity over racing rules rather than a stakeholder with any legitimate decision-making power.<\/p>\n
The GPDA has a WhatsApp group chat involving all the drivers, which has been the subject of paddock intrigue previously.<\/p>\n
The current grid of drivers have become increasingly unified in their views on the direction of the sport, something reigning world champion Lando Norris alluded to on Thursday too.<\/p>\n
\u201cHonestly, I think at the minute all the drivers want the same thing,\u201d the McLaren driver said. \u201cFrom first place to last place, we all want the same thing.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe all just want to go flat-out, race closely, and at the same time that\u2019s the show that the fans want. I think having a seat at the table is something we\u2019ve spoken about as a GPDA. We\u2019re all very aligned with that.<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes I think we have to accept as drivers we\u2019re very blindsided. Maybe the externals from a business side of things, [the] teams, how teams work, how all of that\u2019s organised.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to accept that we\u2019re maybe not always completely correct, but I think the majority of things that we think of us as drivers and how we want for the sport is a win-win.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s better for us and it\u2019s better for the fans, and that\u2019s our side of things. It\u2019s just how some of those things are done are not always able to be easily implemented because of how the sport is as a whole, and money and cost of things and all that. Regulations, rules, all of that.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s completely correct. It\u2019s something that we want. It\u2019s what they have in a lot of other sports. It\u2019s more of just a louder voice at times rather than drivers on this, why are you not doing it?<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just a bit more of a say in some things and persuasion in directions into the future. We just can\u2019t voice our opinion as much as what we would like, but that\u2019s something we\u2019re working on as a collection.\u201d<\/p>\n
F1 has made a series of minor tweaks to the maligned rules set for this weekend\u2019s Miami Grand Prix, but they are not expected to create a major change from the opening three races of the year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MIAMI — Lewis Hamilton has said he and his fellow Formula 1 drivers deserve a \u201cseat at the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":639474,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,578,576,577,82],"class_list":["post-639473","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\/639473","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=639473"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639473\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/639474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=639473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=639473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=639473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}