Dan Ticktum delivered a scathing verdict on Formula 1’s new regulations, with two races of this year’s World Championship now completed.
F1 has been the subject of fierce debate in regards to the increased electrification in its technical regulations, which sees this year’s cars have a 50-50 split in the new power units.
The net result has, so far, produced some interesting outcomes, with lap times, as expected, slower, and the racing primarily dependent on energy efficiency, as well as highly-chaotic starts, due to the removal of the MGH-U component, which has led to some teams, namely Ferrari, interpreting them correctly with lightning fast getaways in comparison to many of its rivals.
Max Verstappen has been one of the leading critics of the new regs, with Ticktum having agreed with the Dutchman in an exclusive interview with Motorsport Week at the previous FE rounds in Jeddah last month.
And now with Verstappen continuing to vocalise his frustrations with two races on the calendar now down, Ticktum, having witnessed the racing for himself, was, in a fresh exclusive with Motorsport Week at the Madrid E-Prix, increasingly irked, stretching his disappointment with other series.
“It’s terrible, absolutely terrible,” he said. “I mean, racing is in a very bad place at the moment, you know, across all sorts of championships.
“You know, you’ve got, over in WEC, everything dominated by BoP [Balance of Power, the technical adjustments to promote parity within the grid], which is just bollocks, if you ask me.
“In F1, [you’ve got] a couple of hundred kilos of battery crap, an engine that sounds like s**t, lifting down the straights, or running out of energy on the strip, it’s just rubbish, it’s just not racing.”
Dan Ticktum questions ‘authenticity’ of F1 overtaking in 2026
With Formula E taking a pounding from its detractors and naysayers as a result of Verstappen’s comments, the four-time World Champion made it clear after his initial comments, in which he likened the new F1 cars to “Formula E on steroids,” that he wanted the all-electric series and F1 to be entirely separate, rather than voicing criticism on FE itself.
McLaren development driver Richard Verschoor, who was part of Formula E’s rookie test with Lola in Madrid, backed his countryman on his comments, and Ticktum, a racing purist, questioned F1’s current overtaking numbers, believing that many hardcore F1 fans would side with him.
“It’s not why people love cars and love racing, and it’s sad, more than anything, to be honest,” he concluded. “It’s not what I grew up and fell in love with as a boy, and I dare say, I think most fans and whatever agree with me.
“I mean, the races in F1 have been a lot more chaotic, a lot more overtaking, but it’s not authentic, is it? It’s not proper overtaking, but it is what it is.”
There’s never any doubt in the authenticity of Ticktum, who has been, as ever, honest in his assessment of F1, and in a separate interview with talkSPORT, once again conveyed his agreement with Verstappen, to whom he referred himself as the “BTEC version” of.
The Cupra Kiro driver was certainly in the thick of some fraught on-track action of his own in Madrid, narrowly missing out on victory in a tight contest which saw him lose third place just before the chequered flag to Porsche’s Pascal Wehrlein, with Jaguar completing a sensational 1-2.
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