The 2026 Formula One season is officially underway after this past weekend’s debut in Australia. With the new regulations come the usual growing pains for drivers and teams, as everyone on the grid and those watching at home recalibrate their expectations for the sport. What’s notable about this season is how common the complaints are among drivers, which could be signalling a fundamental issue with the new cars. Here’s our breakdown of driver complaints about the regulation changes for the start of the 2026 F1 season.

The cars are simply no fun to drive

There has been feedback from a few drivers about the new driving style required to achieve the best lap times in these new cars.

Max Verstappen has called the new regulations “anti-racing” and said he’s “definitely not having fun, at all.” Reigning world champion Lando Norris remarked: “We’ve come from the best cars ever made in Formula One and the nicest to drive to probably the worst. It sucks, but you have to live with it.” Sergio Perez, who has spent a year away from the driver’s seat, also described driving the new cars as “a very different Formula One… a lot less fun.”

Not everyone has negative things to say about the new cars, however. It’s worth noting that George Russell has been a proponent of the new regulations, which is appropriate considering Mercedes’ 1–2 finish in Australia.

Energy management plays a bigger role

Given the perceived enjoyment of the new cars is an issue, one has to ask: why are the cars no fun to drive? The problems stem from the new power unit’s dependence on electrical power. Compared to the previous generation, battery management has become a much more dominant factor, which encourages drivers to drive in counterintuitive ways.

Norris suggests the drivers are being forced to act as battery managers, saying, “You have to look at the steering wheel every three seconds to see what’s going to happen; otherwise, you’re going to end up off the track.” Isack Hadjar noted that with the new battery management techniques at play, they’re “slowing down at the end of every straight. It can be pretty painful.”

The intent behind the 50/50 split between combustion and electrical power was to push Formula One to an era focused on cleaner energy. Unfortunately, the side effect is that the drivers must adopt a fundamentally different driving discipline to be competitive.

Overtaking feels artificial

The modified driving style has affected how drivers overtake as well. Due to the nature of the current overtake system, a sort of “yo-yo” racing occurs on the straights. Drivers who overtake have to lift on subsequent straights to harvest battery power, allowing other cars to overtake them, and then that cycle repeats.

Haas driver Ollie Bearman says, “It’s a bit ridiculous to be honest… that’s not racing, that’s Formula E.” Sergio Perez and Pierre Gasly agree, calling the current racing style “too artificial” and “not natural,” respectively.

While the new overtake and boost modes were designed as a DRS replacement to facilitate overtaking, clearly, there are valid concerns that it’s made overtaking too easy at the expense of traditional racecraft.

Safety concerns among driver complaints

In addition to the complaints about driver enjoyment, the conversation gets a bit more serious when safety is called into question. Two elements in particular are causes for concern: car behaviour under Straight Mode, and the speed differentials created when battery power depletes mid-straight.

Carlos Sainz made his opinions known after Australia, calling Lap one “really sketchy” and “very difficult to control the car in the slipstream.” The FIA is aware of this issue as well, since they decided to remove one of the Straight Mode zones before FP3. On the battery side, Verstappen was clear in his concerns: “It’s chaos, you’re going to have a big accident. We’re just waiting for something to go quite horribly wrong.”

The fact that the FIA had acted so quickly mid-weekend to address a safety concern is a very clear sign that some of the risks built into these new regulations may not be so easy to overcome.

Main takeaways

For some, it would be easy to dismiss the F1 2026 driver complaints as the predictable growing pains of a new regulation cycle. To some extent, that may end up being what they are. The previous generation had its fair share of complaints before the drivers eventually learned how to extract their potential. What sets this iteration apart is that the complaints about enjoyability are paired with safety concerns. With the concerns being validated by the FIA’s sudden track changes mid-weekend, the conversation then becomes more than just expressing growing pains. The hope going forward is that the FIA can course-correct this early in the season and win back both fans and drivers alike.