Despite Formula 1 CEO Stefano Domenicali's insistence that everything with the sport's 2026 regulation is "positive," yet another F1 driver has launched a merciless attack on the divisive changes.
Aston Martin driver Lance Stroll has condemned the changes—primarily a reliance on electrical energy to create the illusion of more competition on track—in scathing new comments that saw him declare a Formula 3 car "1,000 times more fun" to drive than the current F1 cars.
While tweaks have been made to the cars during the April break, it's still not clear whether those will effectively encourage more flat-out driving or whether F1 is simply attempting to create the illusion of change to lessen the backlash from fans and drivers.
"Hopefully it’s better with the part throttle and all this stuff. It’s just destroying the racing, the qualifying laps," Stroll said ahead of this weekend's Miami Grand Prix. "So hopefully it’s a bit more normal to drive, we don’t have to think too much about all the management and lift and coast and how much throttle we’re putting on and all this stuff."
"But I think we’re still far away from proper F1 cars and pushing flat out without thinking about batteries," he continued before being asked whether these alterations are a band-aid solution. "I think so. I think we’re miles off from where we should be."
"I even had the Monaco historics on the TV, and I heard some Ferrari cars from the early 2000s and how good they sounded, and how small and nimble they were. And there were some onboards I saw from the early, or even mid 2000s in the V8 or V10 era. And then what it looks like versus now."
"It came up on my phone, and I was watching it, and you hear what it’s like now, and the character of the cars, just how much more intense it looked and how much more exciting it looked back then compared to now. It’s sad. But hopefully we’re heading back in that direction," the Canadian noted.
"I hear rumours about it for the next regs, but now we’re going to have to live with these ones for the next three or four years. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but hopefully we go back in that direction, those loud, fast, light, nimble machines that are exciting for the fans, exciting for the drivers, you really feel like you’re pushing on the limit."
Calling the current regulations "fundamentally just so flawed," Stroll called the situation "sad" and admitted, "No, F1 is not so fun to drive. I drove other cars over the break. I tested some F3 cars, and it’s like 1,000 times more fun and better to drive, because your right foot, you get what you want."
For the time being, it seems this generation of cars is here to stay. If Domenicali truly believes that there's nothing wrong with the current era of Formula 1—a notion he's seemingly basing on tickets sold before this season started—then it's hard to see how things will get better before another sweeping set of regulation changes.
Max Verstappen has already threatened retirement, and Stroll now joins a long list of drivers who aren't happy with the 2026 regulations.