Lewis Hamilton is concerned about how much energy saving Formula 1 drivers will have to do in the new cars for 2026.
The Ferrari driver said he had to lift off the throttle for a significant part of the lap when he completed his first significant mileage in the SF-26 at the Circuit de Catalunya. Although drivers often had to lift-and-coast during grands prix with the previous power units, now they are having to do more, and even on qualifying laps.
“If you look at Barcelona, for example, we’re doing 600 metres lift-and-coast on a qualifying lap,” said Hamilton. “That’s not what racing is about.”
Drivers need to reduce their throttle use at parts of the circuit in order to conserve electrical energy. After his first run in Bahrain, which has more low-speed corners than the Catalunya track, Hamilton said: “Here we’re not having to do that because there’s lots of braking zones.”
Teams have found they can improve the rate of energy recovery by shifting down into lower gears than they would ordinarily use. “The low gears that we have to go down into is just because we can’t recover enough battery power,” said Hamilton.
“We can’t recover enough battery power, so that’s why we have to go and rev the engines very, very, very high. So we’re going down to second and first in some places just to try to recover that extra bit of power.”
The complexity of the energy management systems on the new power units is also a concern for Hamilton, who believes “none of the fans are going to understand it.”
“I sat in a meeting the other day and they’re taking us through it,” he said. “It’s like you need a degree to fully understand it all.”
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