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THE Formula 1 season finally resumes this weekend with the Miami Grand Prix – the first race in five weeks.
Going into the fourth grand prix of the year, Mercedes’ 19-year-old Italian Kimi Antonelli leads the drivers’ championship from team-mate George Russell.
Miami will be the first event since a series of rule changes to address concerns about the new engine regulations.
BBC F1 correspondent Andrew Benson answers your latest questions.
Do you think the tweaks to this year’s regulations are really going to make a noticeable difference in Miami? – Sam
Formula 1 has made a series of changes to the regulations governing power-units for this weekend’s race in Miami. These are aimed at heading off some of the criticisms of the new rules that have emerged in the first three races.
The changes focus on returning the feel of driving in qualifying to a more conventional/natural “on the limit” one, and alleviating concerns about the dangers of excessive closing speeds when one car is deploying full energy and another is charging its battery.
The detail of these changes is complex, but Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies spoke for most F1 figures last week when he said: “It’s a good step forward. It’s going in the right direction.”
The idea is to reduce the need for so-called ‘lift and coast’ in qualifying, as well as the time spent when the engine is charging the electrical motor at full-throttle, which in F1 jargon is known as ‘super-clipping’.
There are some other – rather esoteric – features of the new rules, about which drivers have complained, that should also be reduced.
However, this is a long way from returning F1 driving to what it has traditionally been. One senior figure said these changes go about 20% of the way there.
Mekies and his opposite number at McLaren, Andrea Stella, both agree that a hardware change is needed to go the full distance.
By that they mean a change in the fuel-flow rate of the internal combustion engine. This would change the current more or less 50-50 split to more like 60-40 or so.
Will it be a “noticeable change” in Miami? For the drivers, it looks like it.
McLaren’s Oscar Piastri said: “The changes to the boost button especially and then some of the way the power comes in should make things a bit more in our control and also a bit more sensible.”
For the audience, less so perhaps. There will be reduced instances of that tell-tale speed drop-off towards the end of straights – but it will still be there.
The idea was to keep the new style of racing, where overtaking happens more often and cars can swap position for several laps. So that is unlikely to be affected dramatically.
Driver styles and car design are talked of often. Using Red Bull as an example, do many teams design a car to suit a driver? Was it a pathway used by Ferrari with Michael Schumacher? To add to my questions, could a driver like George Russell be fast in another car like a Ferrari or an Alpine? – Joseph
First of all, a shout out to Joseph, who delivered his question in an unconventional way. He was struggling to get the BBC Sport website form to work – apologies for that. So he resorted to posting it – from Newfoundland in Canada. Thanks to Joseph – and everyone else who sends in questions – for the support, effort and interest.
The question stems from a common misconception, based on drivers such as Max Verstappen and their specific tastes in an F1 car, in combination with their supernatural ability.
Teams do not design cars for a specific driver. They set about designing the fastest car they can based on objective data.
However, an F1 car is constantly developed throughout a season, and once it hits the track, one of the key metrics that defines how that happens is driver feedback.
And that’s where this idea comes from. If the fastest driver in the team feels he can be quicker if the car behaves differently, he will say so, and the engineers are likely to put more weight on his feedback than that of his team-mate.
Verstappen – like Schumacher before him – is renowned for liking a “pointy” car, ie one with a sharp front end and responsive turn-in. Then he relies on his talent to deal with the loose rear in the corner-entry phase.
But other drivers have found they cannot cope with such a car – they prefer a more stable rear end. And that can lead to large gaps between team-mates.
Alex Albon described it well. He said of his experiences alongside Verstappen at Red Bull in 2019-20: “The car is what it is. He is very quick. He has quite a unique driving style, it’s not that easy to get along with.
“I like a car that has a good front end, so quite sharp, quite direct. Max does, too, but his level of sharp and direct is a whole different level – it’s eye-wateringly sharp.
“To give people an explanation of what that might feel like, if you bump up the sensitivity [on a computer game] completely to the max and you move that mouse and it’s just darting across the screen everywhere, that’s kind of how it feels. It becomes so sharp that it makes you a little bit tense.
“As it goes sharper and sharper, he goes quicker and quicker, and for you to catch up you have to start taking a little bit more risk. You might be a couple of tenths behind one session, just try a little bit more, ‘OK, I’ve gone off, I’ve had a crash’, and you’ve got to restart.
“Then you’ve lost a little bit of confidence, it takes a little bit more time, that gap is growing a little bit, and the next time you try and go out and do another job, another spin or another whatever – it just starts to snowball.”
As for the final part of the question, a genuinely fast driver – such as Russell – will be fast in any car, yes. But car traits can often have an effect on whether any driver can achieve their maximum potential.
In the past, we heard of drivers using the simulator. Now it’s “the simulator in the loop”. What does this mean? – Mick
The correct terminology here is “driver-in-the-loop simulators”, which are now used by all teams to prepare for races and test developments.
These simulators are essentially a highly sophisticated version of a computer game. There is a room in the factory with a mock-up of an F1 chassis and a large screen in front of it – the team programme particular settings and the driver assesses how they feel.
This could be a new aerodynamic package, a new suspension design, even early in the year the entirely new car, etc.
The chassis is mounted on hydraulic pillars, so that it gives a sensation of movement in terms of pitch and roll and bumps and so on. However, it cannot simulate G-forces.
The driver feeds back their impressions and the team responds accordingly, just as they would with a real car on track.
These devices have become extremely sophisticated, but drivers will tell you that there is no substitute for the real thing when it comes to fully assessing a car.
And of course a computer programme can sometimes make mistakes. Usually, the feel translates quite well, but there can be occasions when the car feels quite different out on track than it did in the simulator.
BBCSport
A.I
April 28, 2026
Tags: Miami Grand Prix