Fernando Alonso has offered an amusing take on the new Formula 1 regulations after a first true taste of it at Bahrain this week, joking that the energy management is enabling cars to drive so much slower in corners that the Aston Martin chef “can drive the car”.
The Spaniard is the oldest and most experienced driver on the grid, and has seen the landscape of F1 change a number of times since making his debut in the sport 25 years ago.
Many major regulation changes have come and gone, and all have provided their own unique challenge for drivers, but perhaps the 2026 regulation reset is perhaps the most radical.
The nature of the new 50-50 hybrid engines require a constant energy management with the battery providing the extra power to the internal combustion portion of the power units.
This is like nothing any driver has seen before, and the opening week in Bahrain left Max Verstappen labelling the new cars as like “Formula E on steroids.”
For Alonso, speaking to media at the Bahrain International Circuit on Friday, there is a sense of scepticism, given that the ongoing energy harvesting is taking away a necessity to drive some corners at as fast a speed as possible.
“Yeah, difficult. I don’t know, we need to wait a couple of races to see how this race works when we are all together and how racing becomes, definitely on the pure driving,” he said, when asked by Motorsport Week what his first opinions of the car were.
“I said last week at the car launch that for me the late 90s and the early 2000s will be unbeatable in terms of driving adrenaline and pure skills from a driver point of view because you wanted to drive fast on the corners and find the limits of the car.
“Here in Bahrain, [it] has been historically [Turns] 10 [to] 12, a very challenging corner. So you used to choose your downforce level to go 10-12 just flat. So you remove downforce until you are in 10-12 just flat with new tyres and then in the race. So it was a driver skill, you know, decisive factor to go fast in a lap time.”
Fernando Alonso explains adjustments needed to successfully drive 2026 F1 cars
Alonso continued that the level of slowness in comparison to previous cars in corners such as the one he cited means that pure driving skill is suffering as a result.
“Now in 10-12, we are like 50 kph slower because we don’t want to waste energy there and we want to have all on the straights,” he said. “So to do 10-12, instead of 260, at 200 you can drive the car. The chef can drive the car in 10-12 at that speed. But you don’t want to waste energy because you want to have it on the straights.
“So I understand Max’s comments because from a driver you would like to make the difference in the corner driving those 5 kph faster but now you are dictated by how much energy your engine will have on the next straight. But at the same time this is Formula 1 and it has been always like that.
“Now it’s the energy, last year or two years ago when he won all the races it was the downforce. He could go in the corners at 280 and we could go in the corners at 250 because we didn’t have the downforce.”
Alonso did not shut the door on any positivity, however, saying that it will take the first few races of the season to fully grasp an understanding of whether excitement will increase.
“So at the end of the day, this is Formula 1, we close the visor, we go and this is the same motor racing,” he said. “Sometimes we go to the rental kart here in Bahrain, incredible circuit by the way, and you have a lot of fun with a rental kart. So we still love motor racing, we still love competing, and for the regs, I understand there is less input by the driving skills but I think after three or four races, maybe we have a better idea.”
READ MORE – Oscar Piastri claims F1 has a ‘recipe for disaster’ if changes aren’t made to regulations
Discussion about this post