Closing Speeds Become Less Of A Worry Under Formula 1’s 2026 Rules

The closer the sport gets to Formula 1’s 2026 reset, the more drivers sound like they are stepping into a different discipline rather than simply adapting to a new car.

Esteban Ocon summed up the scale of it with a line that has already stuck in the paddock: drivers can “forget everything” they’ve learned since go-karts. Oscar Piastri has talked about “pretty big differences” compared with what came before, and George Russell has been blunt that there is a lot still to learn.

At the heart of the change is the power unit. The new cars lean far more heavily on electrical energy, with a near 50:50 split between electric power and the internal combustion engine. That shift makes battery harvesting and deployment central to every race weekend across the calendar.

It also creates a counterintuitive reality that drivers are still getting used to. Preserving energy for later can involve moments of deliberate restraint, even on straights, with downshifting cited as one example of how the new approach can look strange to anyone raised on the idea that “flat out” is always fastest.

That is where the early concern over closing speeds came from. If one car is harvesting and another behind is fully deploying, the speed difference can be dramatic. Mercedes boss Toto Wolff said he saw exactly that during the first collective 2026 running in Barcelona, describing an overtake where George Russell passed Franco Colapinto with what he estimated as a 50–60km/h straight-line speed gap.

Wolff believes the racing will change in noticeable ways. The new cars are 32kg lighter, with the minimum weight dropping from 800kg to 768kg, and they will run with less downforce than the ground-effect era. In his view, those factors, combined with energy tactics, should lead to more overtaking and passes in unexpected places, with “intelligent driving and tactics” becoming a clearer part of what fans see.

But the safety angle has lingered, particularly at circuits with blind corners such as Jeddah, where sudden speed differentials could be harder to read. Russell had raised the broader theme two years ago, warning that a high-speed crash could be “pretty crazy,” and pointing out how low downforce on straights could make a wet street race feel especially precarious.

Now, Russell says the headline fear about closing speeds has eased in dry conditions. In his view, the bigger risk would come in low-visibility races, but he argues that wet conditions should naturally reduce the extremes that created the problem in the first place.

His reasoning is rooted in the way energy is recovered. With slower corner speeds and longer braking distances in the wet, Russell says drivers re-harvest more and spend less energy across a lap. That should leave cars with more electrical power available overall, reducing the need for major “de-rates” and, in turn, cutting down the sharp closing-speed moments that worried teams.

Piastri’s early track experience broadly matched that expectation. He said he ran up behind a couple of cars and completed one overtake that featured a sizeable speed difference, though he felt the other driver may have been accommodating. Even so, he does not expect “dangerous scenarios” of cars running at wildly different speeds.

He also pointed to a practical layer of work happening behind the scenes. With a 350kW gap when a car is not deploying full electrical power, Piastri said teams and the FIA have been working closely to make situations safer and more obvious when unexpected behaviour appears on track.

For now, the picture emerging from early comments is that the new era will demand smarter energy choices, and at times it may look unfamiliar. But the drivers most directly involved are starting to talk as if the sport has found ways to stop that complexity from turning into a constant closing-speed threat.