Why tweaks - not major changes - expected to F1's rules

The first of three meetings aimed at deciding potential changes to Formula 1's rules for the rest of the season will take place on Thursday.

It is the initial step in a co-ordinated effort - said to also involve discussions with drivers - to refine the rules following the biggest regulation change in F1 history.

There is a widespread opinion in the sport - influenced by what is perceived to be generally favourable reaction from fans to the new style of racing - that the 2026 rules have - overall - had a positive impact on the sport.

As a result, the meetings are highly unlikely to lead to major changes. Instead, the outcome is expected to be a series of detailed tweaks in the specifics of the rules around power-unit operation that will address some of the main concerns.

Thursday's initial meeting is intended to involve senior technical figures and be an initial discussion of ideas that could be introduced to address some of the issues that have emerged over the first three races.

A second meeting of technical leaders will follow in about a week's time with the aim of finalising a set of proposals for consideration by the sport's bosses.

A third discussion - to be held in the run-up to the next race in Miami on 1-3 May - will involve team principals, F1 president Stefano Domenicali and governing body the FIA. It is intended the proposals from the technical body will be debated, with decisions made about which changes to introduce.

Discussions will centre primarily on energy management of the new power-units, which have a 50-50 split between internal combustion and electrical power.

The demand for large amounts of electrical energy combined with relatively small batteries has led to the cars being energy starved on a fundamental level.

In addition to the introduction of the new 'overtake' and 'boost' modes, which give drivers extra electrical energy to use in on-track battles, this has had a superficially positive effect on racing.

It has produced a number of examples of on-track fights that continue for several laps, with drivers swapping positions a number of times.

However, drivers have criticised the artificial nature of some of the overtakes, when one car has electrical power to deploy and one does not.

And it has led to criticisms from drivers that the skills required in qualifying have been diminished by the need to recover energy, especially in some of the sport's most demanding fast corners.

One example of this is drivers needing to "lift and coast" - lifting off the throttle and letting the car roll before braking for a corner - on qualifying laps on some circuits.

Others would be recovering energy through high-speed corners so the cars are no longer on the limit of grip, or so-called "zero-kilowatt zones", where teams are allowed - and therefore often choose - not to deploy electrical energy. One of these was in the Esses at Suzuka in Japan - considered one of the most demanding sections of race track anywhere in the world.

These are among a series of complexities drivers consider are preventing them expressing their ability to drive to the limit, which in normal situations would mean braking as late as possible for corners, going through them as fast as possible, and getting on to the throttle at the earliest feasible opportunity.

Four-time champion Max Verstappen has gone as far as to admit he is considering his future in the sport because he no longer finds driving the cars enjoyable.

There are also safety concerns, primarily related to the large speed differentials that can arise when one car is deploying energy and one recovering. In that scenario, there is almost a 500bhp difference in power output from the two cars in question.

The discussions this week will focus on some of the technical complexities of the new rules that are involved in creating these scenarios.

Some are relatively simple to explain, others are highly complicated. All are related to what is considered by many senior figures in F1 to be an overly intricate set of rules with too many examples of unnecessary control over operational freedom of the engines.

One example of a rule that could change is the restriction on the amount of energy that can be recovered when a car is on full throttle - a phenomenon known in F1 jargon as "super-clipping".

Currently, this is limited to 250kw, whereas the maximum recovery limit of 350kw can only be used when a car is either off throttle or braking.

Allowing cars to super-clip at 350kw would enable them to recover energy faster in this phase and therefore reduce the need to lift and coast.

There are a series of other complexities in the rules - including zones where teams are allowed to deploy no energy, strict stipulations about rates, and specific moments of reduction of energy deployment - that may need to be addressed.

All of these stem from one decision made at the time of the rules' genesis.

That was the realisation the fastest way for these cars to go around a lap would be to deploy maximum energy as fast as possible at the start of long straights, so the car achieved its terminal velocity as soon as possible.

But this would lead to periods of several seconds on the longest straights where cars were progressively losing speed.

This was perceived to be a potential image problem, so a "ramp-down rate" - a definition of the maximum speed at which energy could be reduced - was introduced.

All the other stipulations around energy management that are in the rules stemmed from that initial decision.

Some senior figures believe this complexity and degree of specificity over engine management will have to be unpicked to a degree, allowing teams and drivers more freedom over how they use their engines, if some of the issues are to be properly addressed.