Formula 1 returns to action at the Miami Grand Prix following an unexpected five-week break when a pair of races in the Middle East were called off because of the war in Iran.

The time off gave the FIA time to make changes to the regulations that drivers heavily criticized after the first three races of the year because of how the electrical battery power has changed the cars and competition.

Will it help? “It’s a tickle,” said Max Verstappen, who has been so vocal about his dislike of the current cars that he’s openly considering leaving F1.

“It’s not what we need yet to really make it flat out. It’s complicated to get everyone to agree,” he continued.

“I just hope for next year we can make really big, big changes. Like I said, it’s a tickle, but it needs to be more than a tickle, for sure.” Drivers won’t be able to truly get a feel for the changes until Friday (May 1, 2026) when practice begins, so everything they have learned so far has been limited to simulator work. While the drivers were able to offer opinions on how the FIA should attack the complaints about the car, they aren’t sure how much influence they really had.

“The fact is, we don’t have a seat at the table. We do engage with the FIA and F1 more often,” said seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton.

“We’re not stakeholders. I say to them, when I was doing the early tests, I was like, You guys should come and speak to us and collaborate with us.’ “We’re like, Speak to us, we’ll work, and we can work together.’ We want this sport to succeed. It’s like small baby steps each time.” Verstappen acknowledged that the drivers did have quality conversations but there is room for a stronger relationship moving forward.

“The positive thing about it is we have had some nice meetings with Formula 1 and the FIA and I think that’s probably like a starting point,” Verstappen said.

“In a few years time, where maybe I’m not here anymore, I’d really hope that for the future drivers as well, there’s more input to come from the drivers to the organizers in general. I do think that most of the drivers here, we have a good understanding and a good feel of what is needed to make Formula 1 a good product, a fun product.

“I think everyone has tried their best to at least do something. But of course, it won’t change the world.”

Upgrades everywhere

The break allowed the 11 teams in the paddock to assess their season after three races and update their cars ahead of Sunday’s (May 3, 2026) race. That’s another uncertainty the field is attempting to navigate.

“It’s going to be pretty unusual to see so many upgrades on so many different teams,” said Charles Leclerc.

“I’m pretty sure most of the people will have kind of new cars for here. Whether it will change significantly the pecking order that we have seen since the beginning of the year, I doubt so.” The Ferrari driver believes Mercedes will still have the early season control over the rest of the field. George Russell and Kimi Antonelli combined to win the first three races of the season and Antonelli is the current points leader.

“I think the package will make a difference on that, hopefully for us better, but at the point of going and get Mercedes, I think they are, they were too ahead for us to actually get them only with what we are bringing here,” said Leclerc.

Weather concerns

And then there’s the added threat of heavy rain on Sunday and the forecast is so unpleasant that it dominated conversation three days before the race.

The National Weather Service is calling for thunderstorms for all of South Florida throughout Sunday, while AccuWeather is showing a 55% chance of thunderstorms on race day. It could disrupt the event because conditions must be stable enough for a medical helicopter to be able to fly when cars are racing, plus the NWS recommends seeking shelter if the delay between thunder and lightning is shorter than 30 seconds.

The NWS recommends waiting at least 30 minutes before leaving shelter and cited Florida as the state that “specifically leads the U.S. in lightning deaths, injuries, and casualties.” The weather service also says lightning is Florida’s number one “weather killer.” “In the wet we are really passengers,” said Leclerc.

“In the rain, it’s not about being brave or not. You stay flat out and you hope that no cars in front of you are slower than you and you just assume they are on the same speed as you. So it’s not such a nice feeling.”

Published – May 01, 2026 11:46 am IST

Formula 1 is back, and the show has changed.

This week’s Miami Grand Prix is the first test of a package of changes that curb the influence of the electrical battery power which has redefined how F1 drivers go racing in 2026.

Drawn up during the enforced month-long break when races in West Asia were called off, the changes follow a backlash from many drivers aggrieved at the regular need to go slow to charge the all-important battery. Max Verstappen is publicly considering whether to leave F1 entirely.

The electrical power has produced some thrilling on-track action with plenty of overtaking, but fans and drivers are split over how much driver skill matters when many moves are hard to defend against. Champion Lando Norris has even reported making overtakes by mistake when the power kicked in unexpectedly.

Many senior F1 figures are playing down the changes or deny there was a problem in the first place. Toto Wolff, whose Mercedes team dominated the first three changes, wanted changes made with a scalpel, not a baseball bat. The rule makers seems to have listened.

Nikolas Tombazis, the top F1 regulations official at the FIA, the sport’s governing body, sees his role as a doctor prescribing diet, exercise or vitamins.

“It was quite clear we need to take certain steps. I think it was quite clear that people also need to come out of their comfort zone for some of these discussions,” he said on Monday (April 27, 2026).

Avoiding another huge crash

Drivers had been warning for months about big differences in speed, and the big crashes that could result.

It finally happened at the Japanese Grand Prix in March as Oliver Bearman hurtled toward a barrier at 190 mph (306 kph) while trying to avoid Franco Colapinto. Bearman was left limping but it could have been worse at a street circuit with barriers closer to the track.

There’s now a cap on the extra power from the overtake “boost” mode, and other limits to electrical power in certain areas.

Other safety-focused changes will speed up slow-moving cars at a race start or aim to make cars more controllable in wet weather — conditions the 2026 cars have yet to face.

Qualifying becomes a different challenge

Qualifying will feel faster but actually be slower now that drivers aren’t lifting off the gas as often to recharge batteries.

That’s because the batteries won’t recharge quite as much, and they’ll charge more quickly at high speed, too. That means the drivers will be “flat out” more often, even if less electrical power means the cars will be slower overall, Tombazis has said.

“We felt drivers had to do some slightly counterintuitive or unnatural things in order to extract the best performance out of qualifying,” he said.

That largely matches recommendations by Mercedes’ George Russell, who’s started 2026 as a title contender and is influential in the paddock as a drivers’ association director.

What hasn’t changed

The changes don’t give drivers much more control over how and when most of the electrical power is deployed.

Except for the optional boost button for overtaking, most of the time, complex algorithms release the power or cut it back in a way that isn’t directly related to the driver’s use of the gas pedal. That could mean drivers still get unexpected power spikes which can waste power or make the car tricky to control.

Some of the changes mean more automatic control of the power, lowering the limit in certain parts of the circuit for safety reasons.

Tombazis confirmed there was no measure specifically to stop unintentional overtaking, often caused by getting more power than expected at an unfavorable point on the track, but argued other safety-focused changes “go to some extent towards addressing this issue.”

What’s next

Tombazis said the FIA will keep reviewing how the regulations work at upcoming races and could make further changes. There isn’t an obvious time to do so until the summer break in August, with eight races before then.

Teams will be hunting for any loopholes in the meantime. Tombazis says he has a regulations staff of around 15 at the FIA, compared to 3,000 engineers across the 11 teams.

“The fact we had a break meant that we could concentrate on these discussions while we didn’t have to go racing every other weekend. It doesn’t mean that these discussions cannot continue,” he said on Monday (April 27).

There’s also the looming question of what comes next for F1 when these regulations run their course, by 2030 at the latest.

Published – April 30, 2026 01:57 am IST