{"id":699276,"date":"2026-05-28T11:59:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T11:59:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/699276\/"},"modified":"2026-05-28T11:59:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T11:59:13","slug":"entertaining-canadian-gp-doesnt-mean-f1-rules-are-fine-drivers-say-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/699276\/","title":{"rendered":"Entertaining Canadian GP doesn’t mean F1 rules are fine, drivers say"},"content":{"rendered":"

Formula 1 delivered another intriguing spectacle at last weekend’s Canadian Grand Prix, but that doesn’t mean the series is in a better place with its complex power unit rules, Sunday’s leading drivers say.<\/p>\n

Sunday’s race on Montreal’s stop-start Circuit Gilles Villeneuve appeared to bring out the best in the 2026 cars as they are currently being run. The race featured plenty of overtakes, and not just triggered by the push of a button but also as the result of intense wheel-to-wheel racing.<\/p>\n

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The lead battles between George Russell<\/a> and Kimi Antonelli raised the average heart rate over at Mercedes<\/a>, while Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton<\/a> and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen<\/a> also said they enjoyed their duel, which Hamilton eventually came out on top of.<\/p>\n

The energy deployment tweaks made in Miami to ease driver concerns over how they have to drive these extremely complex power units appeared to have delivered a step, but amid talks to make more drastic changes for 2027, Montreal’s podium finishers warn the rules are still not in a great place, with qualifying remaining a major point of concern.<\/p>\n

“I think it still continues to be a weird feeling,” Hamilton said when asked by Motorsport if drivers have learned to enjoy how these cars have to be raced. “You go down the power, you open up the straight mode, and then the power dies like halfway down the straight and the RPM starts dropping. It doesn\u2019t feel like what motorsport should be. The engine should be wringing its neck off right to the end of the straight and just pulling and pulling. That\u2019s what they used to do in the V8 or V10 times.<\/p>\n

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“Ultimately the car is fundamentally a better design, so we can race and get close and follow each other closely, and I think that\u2019s the best part of it. The power part, I think, is less exciting.”<\/p>\n

Read Also:<\/p>\n

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Why Lewis Hamilton now has everything in the right place at Ferrari <\/a><\/p>\n

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Kimi Antonelli not thinking about F1 title despite 43-point lead <\/a><\/p>\n

Race winner and championship leader Antonelli said the energy management required can still “trigger” drivers as they have to take care to keep their throttle positions and battery charge at a certain level to get the most performance over a lap.<\/p>\n

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“It still sometimes triggers you a little bit how the system works,” the Italian explained. “But with the changes that were made, also the FIA giving teams a bit more allowance on system, it definitely has helped quite a bit to make things a bit easier.<\/p>\n

“I think that the cars [are] much better than last year. You can actually follow a lot closer and that definitely creates more racing. But on the power unit side \u2013 definitely I cannot complain about my power unit because the team did an incredible job \u2013 there\u2019s still work to do and it will be interesting to see what\u2019s going to happen in the next couple of years, if the regulation is going to change, if they\u2019re going to give a bit more power to the combustion.”<\/p>\n

Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari, Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing\"Lewis<\/p>\n

Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari, Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing<\/p>\n

Verstappen, who had previously said it’s mentally “not doable” for him to continue in F1 unless 2027’s proposed changes to increase combustion power are voted through, said Sunday’s entertaining race doesn’t mean the rules are suddenly fine.<\/p>\n

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“Most of the drivers, we\u2019re the best in the world. So even if you would give us a rental car, we\u2019ll give you a good show and we\u2019ll race each other very hard and well,” the Dutchman cautioned. “So, it has nothing to do in that sense with the rules.<\/p>\n

“The fans don\u2019t even know what we are dealing with while driving, what is allowed when you\u2019re behind or when you\u2019re the car ahead, what we have to do on a formation lap or what we have to do in an out-lap, or how much battery that we\u2019re allowed to charge. It’s such a shame that we have to deal with all these things.<\/p>\n

“For me F1 just needs to be more pure and I really hope that what they try to do next year will go through because I think that is the minimum necessary to make it a bit more natural and a bit more back to normal.”<\/p>\n

Read Also:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

How Ferrari and Audi could decide Max Verstappen’s F1 future <\/a><\/p>\n

To read more Motorsport.com articles visit our website<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Formula 1 delivered another intriguing spectacle at last weekend’s Canadian Grand Prix, but that doesn’t mean the series…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":699277,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,52039,254816,578,930,576,577,25251,932,1885,128059,1882,82],"class_list":["post-699276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-circuit-gilles-villeneuve","tag-complex-power","tag-f1","tag-ferrari","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-kimi-antonelli","tag-lewis-hamilton","tag-max-verstappen","tag-power-unit","tag-red-bull","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/699276","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=699276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/699276\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/699277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=699276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=699276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=699276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}