Almost every notable voice on the 2026 grid has taken a swing at the new regulations at some point this season. Mika Hakkinen, who has the advantage of not having to drive them, thinks the grid does not know how good it has it.
The Finn was on the Up to Speed podcast with David Coulthard, his McLaren team-mate between 1996 and 2001. Coulthard suggested he was not sure he would want the technical load the modern cars impose. Hakkinen went the other way.
"Well, it's crazy. I feel these cars must be better cars than what we had," he said. "They must be better. They must be much more stable under the braking. The torque of the engine must be much more linear coming out of the corners, downshift, the upshifts, the braking performance, everything must be better."
He was equally taken with how teams now develop them. "I found it fascinating that the technology has gone so much forward that you can develop the car in simulators. Whatever adjustments you do in gearboxes or whatever balance of the car, you can implement that to the real world in a real car."
One thing he would not want is the mass. "I think we had probably 800, 900 horsepower. Now they have definitely minimum 1,000. I think the only thing I would not like is the weight of the car," Hakkinen said. "We had 6, 700 kilos [...] Now they are still 800, 900 kilos. So I think that would be the negative thing when you're in a corner and you like to play with the steering a little bit and to balance the car."
Max Verstappen's assessment, delivered after his first proper run in the 2026 Red Bull in Bahrain, could hardly be further away.
"To drive, they are not a lot of fun, to be honest," he said. "I would say the right word is management. It's not very Formula 1-like. It feels a bit more like Formula E on steroids. But the rules are the same for everyone, so you have to deal with that."
The specific loss, for him, is the ability to attack. "As a pure driver, I enjoy driving flat out and at the moment, you cannot drive like that. There's a lot going on. A lot of what you do as a driver, in terms of inputs, has a massive effect on the energy side of things. For me, that's just not Formula 1."
Lando Norris, who has since taken McLaren's first win of the year in Hungary, was unimpressed by the complaint. "A lot of fun. I really enjoyed it," he said of his own car, adding: "If he wants to retire, he can retire. Formula 1 changes all the time. Sometimes it's a bit better to drive, sometimes it's not as good to drive."
Lewis Hamilton's problem is with comprehension rather than feel. "None of the fans are going to understand it, I don't think. It's so complex. It's ridiculously complex," he said. "I sat in a meeting the other day and they're taking us through it and it's like you need a degree to fully understand it all." His illustration: "If you look at Barcelona, for example, we're doing 600 metres lift and coast on a qualifying lap. That's not what racing is about."
Fernando Alonso blames the governance, not the hardware. "It's very limited by the FIA, so when you derate and you cut the energy, it has to be done at a certain rate of derating," he said. "There are a couple of things that are really probably over-regulated. So in terms of freedom or how to use that energy in a clever way, it's going to be minimal differences because there is not much you can do."
Four people, four different tests. Hakkinen is grading the engineering. Verstappen is grading the sensation. Hamilton is grading whether the audience can follow it. Alonso is grading the rulebook. None of them contradicts the others outright, which is why the argument has run all season without resolving.
The evidence from eleven rounds tilts toward Hakkinen on one point at least: overtaking is up on 2025 at almost every venue, and Verstappen and Hamilton have gone toe to toe at both Miami and the Hungaroring. What Hakkinen cannot offer is a lap time. "Must be better" is a deduction from spec sheets.
He is willing to check. "Otherwise, I think it would be exciting to try them."
Zandvoort, on 23 August, ends the break.
