The Ultimate Guide To Racing In 2026!

There's one question everybody wants to know. How are the drivers going to go about racing in 2026? Is it going to look any different? From piecing together the perfect lap on a Saturday to avoiding mistakes on Grand Prix Sunday, I'm going to look at the five key areas I think it's going to take for drivers to negotiate their way through this set of new regs in 2026. Qualifying is still going to be an essential part and it's still going to be about putting together the absolute best lap on a Saturday. But the challenges will be different. The cars look a lot more challenging to drive at this stage in the season. New cars and new concepts for them to get their heads around. Firstly, a lack of downforce. The cars are moving around a lot more. You're seeing the drivers have to work at the steering rather than having the glued ground effect of recent years. The overall speeds through the corners, particularly the high speeds, are down. But the shorter wheelbase means they're also quite darty, they're quite nimble and you can hang on to slides. The bigger difference, though, is in the power unit and the energy deployment because that changes everything on the way in and the way out of the corners. We've seen so many lock-ups so far through testing. On top of that, the cars are regenerating a little bit so the drivers are having to try and get as much braking to the rear axle which means they're becoming more unstable again. There's a theory that that's going to help drivers such as Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc who quite like a pointy car with a difficult rear end. Same is true on traction. They have so much torque, these new power units. You've got a 50-50 split between the ice, the combustion engine power and the electric motor as well, giving you huge power and a huge oomph off the corner. So we're going to see some snappy exits and some difficult entries. It is not going to be easy for them on a Saturday. The Grand Prix starts are going to be equally as crucial as they always have done but they're going to be more complex this year without an MGU-H. The five red lights go out! The MGU-H used to do a crucial job and that was spooling up the turbo. Without that, the teams are really struggling to get that fired up and find the sweet spot of good launch. So in the last years, we'll be used to 9 out of 10 starts being fairly uniform. The pole sitter will often lead into the first corner. Not anymore. Lewis flying to the lead from 9th on the grid. See you later. That's a brilliant start from Ferrari. Ferrari seem to have got an early march on the field and with their power unit customers, Haas and Cadillac, they could be ones to watch in Melbourne. And as George Russell said, he's had two practice starts and they've been the two worst starts of his entire Formula 1 career. I think we've got a lot of potential beneath us but to win a race, you've also got to get off the line quite well. Trying to find the right revs and getting that clutch release has always been the challenge. But now if you're not there, you could really bog the engine without a spooled up turbo. And if you go too much the other way, you're sending drivers with loads of wheel spin. Either way, you could qualify on pole and be sick by the time you get to the first corner. There's no DRS this year, so overtaking and defending race craft all round might look slightly different too. No DRS, but instead there is overtake mode. Let's close the gap to one second. Which is more deployment for longer on the straight. Whilst you'll see the rear wing flaps open, that's now in conjunction with the front wing flaps and that is active aero, where all cars will be doing it all of the time. The thing with this is, if you deploy your energy to overtake, it's not for free like DRS was. With the overtake, you could deplete all of your energy from the battery and be a sitting duck on the next straight. Overtake now available. We might see racing with big closing speeds as someone's harvesting energy versus someone deploying with that overtake. You want to try and make an overtake when there is then a few corners in a row afterwards to get that battery topped up again. So you can then use the boost to defend on the next corner. It's going to be tricky. It's going to be different. That's going to be something for all the drivers to get their heads around. I'm sure we're going to see lots of pass and repass, particularly in Melbourne, when it's going to be really difficult to get that battery topped up before there's another long straight. Key factors from old are going to remain as well. Tyres and strategy are going to be equally important to execute a great Grand Prix on Sunday. There is an all-new Pirelli tyre. It's narrower. It's a new construct and compound. But overall, the drivers have been reporting a similar feeling. That is difficulty when you're on combined traction, difficulty on combined braking, similar levels of degradation. So at least that's one headache they're not having to worry about too much at this stage. But it's still going to be important for them to work out exactly how the degradation is going to play out in each race. There's a feeling that because the high-speed corners are a little bit lower with the less downforce and some energy harvesting, they might not be putting so much load through the tyres. And that might make the strategy different as well. Whilst we're still going to see fuel levels coming down through the race, an undercut in theory working as drivers pit for fresh tyres, if the degradation's low and drivers once again have a topped-up battery, they might be able to do a really quick in-lap depleting that battery, and come out and actually make an overcut, which we might see a little bit more this season. Strategy, therefore, could be a little bit different and it could give more opportunities. Finally, what about the other variables? You've got mistakes. They're going to be higher this year, but also, so is poor reliability, so that could offer some chances. A lot of drivers have been talking about mistakes because the brakes particularly are so sensitive and they're so difficult. There have been so many lock-ups all the way through testing. It's one thing happening in Bahrain when you're on a test day and you've got loads of asphalt run-off. Melbourne, you don't have that luxury. You have gravel, you have grass, and you have barriers pretty close as well. Are we going to see drivers being a little bit more cautious, particularly in race trim, having to make sure they don't suddenly get a bit more power if they're playing around with the battery modes to overtake or defend, and they catch themselves out by arriving into the same corner they did the last lap a little bit too quick, lock up and go off? It could well happen over 57 laps of a Grand Prix. The concentration will have to be that bit higher at the start of this year. And on top of that, the reliability concerns. We are used to bulletproof cars. They've been so good for the last few seasons, but for a key few exceptions, this year it's not the case. New regs, new cars, new ideas. We don't yet know what's going to break and we don't have a huge range of circumstances the heat of certain races might prove a problem. Who knows what's going to happen if it rains? That will be one heck of a challenge for all the drivers as well. It's one thing getting these beasts around a dry Bahrain circuit, but controlling low downforce with huge torque, especially if you get conditions like we did in Melbourne last year, these things are going to be animals. If all 22 cars make it to the flag, I will be shocked. Whoa! I thought Turn 12 was easy. So whilst it may be a bit chaotic, it may look really different in Melbourne, it's going to be fascinating to see how these cars hit the ground in a couple of weeks and maybe there will be different ideas to that too. Bring it on!