The Belgian Grand Prix should be a driver's playground. Instead, much of the grid is heading to Spa-Francorchamps worried about how little electrical energy their 2026 cars will have to play with. Silverstone already showed what happens when the hybrid runs out on a long straight, and Spa, longer and faster still, threatens to magnify the problem.
No one has spelled it out more bluntly than Fernando Alonso. "Silverstone and Spa, they are very thirsty on energy. You cannot deploy in all the straights," the Aston Martin veteran said. The dilemma at Spa, he argued, is where to spend it. "If you deploy in Spa from Turn 1 to 5, it is finito for the rest of the lap," Alonso said. "You need to save a little bit there to have deployment from 14 to the bus stop. But if you deploy in those two straights, which is the optimal deployment, then there is one minute, sector 2, with no deployment at all."
Run the battery flat and the consequences are stark. "With no deployment at all, we cannot forget that this year we have significantly less power than last year and less power than F2," Alonso warned.
Over at Haas, Esteban Ocon and Oliver Bearman describe the same phenomenon from different angles. Ocon has had to relearn how to attack a qualifying lap. "On quali-style runs, we are doing like lift-and-coast and stuff. That's a very new thing to do," he said. "If you stay full throttle, you are basically putting the handbrake at the end of the straight, and if you lift and coast, it's not that much." And yet the sheer acceleration has floored him: "I never thought I would get to 350km/h that fast. It's something insane, honestly."
Bearman's verdict is gloomier. "The annoying thing is definitely the energy management, the clipping and all of these things," the rookie said, admitting that "feeling it in reality for the first time is a little bit sad."
Not everyone in the sport shares the pessimism. F1 boss Stefano Domenicali has stood by the 2026 regulations, likening the energy-saving demands to earlier turbo eras. But Spa's blast up the Kemmel straight after Eau Rouge is precisely where an early burst of deployment leaves a car powerless later. When the lights go out for the Belgian Grand Prix, watch for drivers short-shifting and lifting well before the corners as they ration every kilojoule.
