(Motorsport-Total.com) – After the pre-season tests in Barcelona and Bahrain, Melbourne will represent the first real stress test for the new Formula 1 regulations. What makes Albert Park so tricky in terms of energy management, and does the FIA have a Plan B for this season?
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The moment Max Verstappen expressed his concerns regarding the completely new Formula 1 regulations, he immediately added: “On this track in Bahrain it’s not too bad, but when we go to Melbourne, then you will really see how much we run out of energy on the straights.”
The Red Bull driver has since received support from other drivers in the paddock. Among them, Oliver Bearman and Oscar Piastri have predicted that energy management “Down Under” will be significantly more difficult than on the tracks where the teams have tested their new cars so far.
“Melbourne is tough because you just can’t recover as much energy,” explained the British Haas driver. “That’s naturally because we can only recover seven megajoules per lap, whereas here it’s 8.5, but that’s still a big difference.”
“Last year, Melbourne was one of the race tracks of the season where you could go full throttle the most, which is not the kind of course for which these regulations are particularly suitable. It will definitely be a challenge.”
Piastri added that he had already noticed a significant difference during preparations for his home Grand Prix. “Based on the simulator runs I’ve done, it’s very different. I think we will have much more limitations on certain tracks than here in Bahrain.”
“Here, depending on where you set your optimum, you don’t have to do much super-clipping or a lot of lift-and-coast, whereas in Melbourne, in my opinion, you would run out of energy very quickly if you didn’t do that.”
“Jeddah is another example. Places where you have several straights connected by fast corners, where it is very difficult to recover energy. That’s where the biggest anomalies will occur,” predicted the McLaren driver.
The underlying factor is the lack of long braking zones and slow corners where drivers can charge the battery during the braking phase or through partial throttle. The layout of the Bahrain International Circuit has masked this problem, but a different picture could emerge in the coming weeks.
Melbourne a “low-yield” F1 track
While Piastri suggests it’s mainly down to the layout, his team principal Andrea Stella clarifies the details. According to the Italian, one must distinguish between two different types of tracks: “high-yield” and “low-yield” tracks.
“In Bahrain it was relatively easy because you spend so much time braking that you basically recover all the energy during braking. You don’t have to do anything special, like lifting off the throttle earlier, to extend the time in which you gain energy for the power unit. Now we’re going to Australia, and there we’re returning to a track where it will be a bit more difficult.”
This is directly related to the extent to which a driver has to do “unnatural things” to recover energy, such as early lifting on the straights and additional downshifting, which the drivers have spoken about.
“I think these two tracks [Barcelona and Bahrain] don’t necessarily convey the full picture,” Stella continued. “Definitely, there could still be cases where the driver has to act differently than they are used to, i.e., not braking as late as possible and being as fast as possible in every corner. But as I said, we have to monitor the situation a bit.”
Precisely for this reason, Carlos Sainz has called on the FIA to approach this monitoring “open-mindedly,” as the Williams driver does not rule out that adjustments to the regulations might be necessary.
“My message to FOM and FIA is that at the beginning of the year we have to remain a bit open in case the regulations we’ve come up with are perhaps a bit excessive in terms of the amount of energy we have to recover or deploy during a lap.”
“It might seem okay on some tracks, like possibly here – although I think based on what we’re seeing so far, it’s not quite okay.”
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What options does the FIA have as Plan B?
The FIA’s single-seater director, Nikolas Tombazis, has already indicated that he is open to the possibility of adjusting the rules. However, the world governing body does not want to make any changes before the first race, as Tombazis believes this would only create more uncertainty. In addition, he wants to collect additional data from an actual race, including duels on the track.
“I think, in my view, we’ve done 90 percent of the work to get to a reasonable point. There may be some adjustments as we learn more about the cars, and we are completely open to that.”
The follow-up question, of course, is what options are actually available to the FIA. Tombazis admits that certain elements related to energy recovery and energy deployment could be adjusted, but does not want to go into detail yet.
In this regard, the FIA also wants to wait for the opening races before presenting concrete proposals. These would have to go through the usual governance procedures.
Two options seem most obvious as short-term solutions. Both would alleviate the symptoms rather than fundamentally changing the philosophy of the 2026 regulations – something that is politically and practically impossible at this stage.
Regarding deployment, the FIA could reduce the electrical power in race trim to 250 kW instead of 350 kW, which would lower peak power but could mean that drivers are less often “energy-poor” at the end of the straights, as Verstappen described it.
What “Super-Clipping” means
On the energy recovery side, recent discussions behind the scenes have focused primarily on the term “super-clipping”. This is exactly the idea Stella mentioned, should the first races prove problematic.
“We tested the possibility of increasing super-clipping to 350 kilowatts. I’m afraid we’re getting into the technical details of the new regulations here, which we all need to familiarize ourselves with a bit and which we also need to help our fans familiarize themselves with,” said Stella.
“But super-clipping is the moment when the electric motor starts to gain energy even when the driver is at full throttle. This situation is called a super-clip. Currently, it is limited to 250 kilowatts, but all the conditions are in place to raise this to 350 kilowatts while the driver is at full throttle, which means the driver doesn’t have to lift and coast to generate 350 kilowatts.”
Following discussions in the Formula 1 Commission, this solution was tried out on the final day of testing in Bahrain. At McLaren, it caused no problems, as Stella explained, but for Honda, who are already facing greater challenges on the power unit side, such an intervention could be more problematic.
Nevertheless, from McLaren’s perspective, this could serve as a Plan B to prevent excessive lift-and-coast and avoid other unnatural driving techniques.
“We discussed this with the FIA, and ultimately it will be up to the FIA to decide whether to introduce it or not. We tested it successfully today and are satisfied,” Stella added. For now, however, the FIA believes it should wait for the first races before taking action.
From a practical point of view, this is inevitable anyway, as the process for any regulatory change would take at least several weeks, and this time is no longer available before Melbourne and the first sprint weekend of the season in China.
One thing is clear even before the season opener: with Melbourne and Jeddah, Formula 1 faces two major challenges early in the season, but also two valuable tests to evaluate how suitable these regulations are for the fast, flowing tracks on the current race calendar.
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