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Oscar Piastri says the Belgian Grand Prix highlighted how little control Formula 1 drivers have over their cars.
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Drivers’ criticism of F1’s 2026 regulations has intensified over the last two races at Spa and Silverstone, two of the fastest tracks on the calendar. Besides having too little power to tackle their most spectacular corners at maximum speed, drivers were also frustrated by the significant impact minor changes in their technique has on the power available.
Piastri said the deficiencies of the current power unit regulations were especially clear on Spa’s long straights.
“Even with the previous hybrid engines, there was a big element of learning, coding and AI, to some extent. When I joined Formula 1, those engines were incredibly mature, but also the penalty of things being slightly wrong or slightly out of place was significantly less, because it was such a small percentage of the overall power you got.
“Whereas this year, it’s basically half your power. So any small differences or anything that doesn’t quite go right has a massive impact, especially at a track like Spa.”
Although he expects F1’s engine manufacturers will find ways to lessen the effect, after half a second with the current power units, Piastri doubts the problem can be solved completely under the current rules.
“We’ve got no control over where the deployment happens, more or less. You can push the boost button, but that’s more for overtaking than in qualifying, especially.
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“Like I said in Spa, when you’ve got those differences there that you have no control over, it can be frustrating. I’m sure it’ll get better. I don’t expect it to ever fully go away, but as the manufacturers understand it more and work out the regulation restrictions more, in terms of what the code can and can’t do, hopefully things will become a bit better.”
Piastri admitted it sometimes felt like he was a passenger in his car while the software played a far greater role in deciding his lap time than how well he approached a certain corner. However he is hopeful that will matter less at the Hungaroring this weekend.
“Again, at a track like Spa or a track like Silverstone, it’s going to be worse. Here, I really don’t expect there to be many problems at all with that kind of thing, because the straights are so much shorter, so even if there are differences, they should be a lot less.
“But the principle of driving a race car that loses effectively half of its power before the end of the straight is hard to get your head around sometimes. Even in Spa, a lot of the middle sector we were doing it just on the combustion engine, with no battery assistance at all, which is a weird feeling in itself, having some corners with a certain amount of power and others with full power.
“Spa was particularly frustrating, not just for me but for quite a lot of others, because those small differences in the code and what the engines did made quite a big difference in lap time. Especially at the front of the field, I think there were still only nine hundredths or something separating four positions, and there were definitely more than nine hundredths on the table for quite a few drivers from things they could not control.”
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