Oscar Piastri revealed one of the main difficulties faced by drivers in the 2026 Formula 1 season. The Australian stated that he would need ‘half an hour’ to fully explain the challenges posed by the current power units, classifying the situation as frustrating.
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Ten stages after the introduction of the new engines, teams are still trying to understand all the nuances of the technical regulations. The category eliminated the MGU-H and changed the power distribution between the internal combustion engine and the battery, which went from 80/20 in 2025 to a 50/50 balance this year.
The changes have been particularly noticeable on high-speed circuits, with long straights and fast corners. On these tracks, drivers face difficulties in recovering energy, while manufacturers and teams continue to develop solutions for regulations still far from the level of maturity achieved by the previous generation of hybrid engines.
Another aspect in evidence in 2026 involves the algorithms responsible for power unit management. According to the explanations presented, the system learns the circuit’s behavior as the car completes laps, but situations such as oversteer or the need to reduce pace due to blue flags can interfere with this process.
Commenting on the topic, Piastri highlighted the differences compared to the engines used since his debut in the category in 2023: “To give the full answer, I would probably need half an hour. Even with the previous hybrid units, there was a large component of learning, programming, and to some extent, artificial intelligence,” he stated.
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The McLaren driver emphasized that the engines used until 2025 were at a much more advanced stage of development: “When I arrived in Formula 1, these engines were incredibly mature, but the penalty for something being slightly wrong was significantly smaller, because it represented a small percentage of the total available power,” he said.
Piastri added that, in 2026, any small variation has a much greater impact on performance: “This year, that basically represents half of the car’s power, so any small difference or something not working exactly as it should has a huge impact, especially on a track like Spa,” he added.
Finally, the Australian admitted that drivers have little influence over energy usage during a lap: “We don’t have control over where power delivery happens, generally speaking. You can press the overtake button, but it’s used more for fighting for position than in qualifying. As I said at Spa, when there are differences over which you have no control, that can be frustrating. I’m sure it will improve, even if it never completely disappears,” he concluded.
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