George Russell, as president of the World Drivers’ Association (GPDA) has been the first to offer a counterpoint to the new 2026 cars, so light and powerful that speed could be an issue, “as you can reach 258 m/h on several circuits,” says the Mercedes driver.
The magic overtaking button, the attack mode and the new electric power will make “the cars take quite a big turn in terms of performance. They’ll be exceptionally fast on the straights, probably 258 m/h on most tracks, which is pretty impressive,” says Russell.
New F1 speeds cause concern
“It will have so little downforce on the straights that you’ll almost feel like you’re flying through the air. Imagine a race where it starts raining and you’re wearing slick tires and you’re going above that speed on a street circuit…these are questions to be answered.”
“Time will tell, but the cars are already tremendously fast. Where do we stop? Do the fans really need or want to see this?” he advances on a F1 classic, that on television the viewer doesn’t distinguish if a car is five seconds per lap slower.
“Obviously, safety probably needs to be improved, because having an accident at that speed is going to be crazy,” adds the Brit. “When it comes to safety, unfortunately, history has told us that incidents need to happen before changes are made, so I think everyone needs to do a very thorough job before they put this regulation in place, because the cars are going to be so fast,” insists George, who gives a little credit to the top federating body.
“To be fair to the FIA, they are fully aware of this, they are aware of this and they are looking at all possible scenarios of what could happen,” he says.
“From a driving standpoint, you want the fastest cars, you want to feel like you’re in a fighter jet and in 2020 and 2021 it felt that way, and now these cars are getting really fast again,” he added.
“It would be a shame to lose some of that car performance. But on the other hand, it will improve the racing if there is less downforce and less dirty air. You can’t have it all and you have to pick your battles – what is it that we want to achieve? For me, what you want is to have good, hard racing and strong competition, ideally, between every team and every driver.”
Teams meanwhile seem more concerned about meeting deadlines and being able to move forward with the overall aerodynamic concept, with those new X- or Z-position wings for corners or straights, and some teams even doubt that the batteries will hold up all the time, resulting in slow cars on track.
If they have to make them bigger, they doubt that the cars can weigh 30 kg less as foreseen by the new regulations.
