Max Verstappen is not a fan of F1’s new regulations

Formula 1 implemented its biggest set of technical regulations in history, aiming to improve the racing spectacle.

But one of the sport’s biggest stars is not a fan, at least not yet.

Four-time Drivers’ Champion Max Verstappen met the media in Bahrain on Thursday, site of F1’s second round of pre-season testing, and blasted the new generation of cars. During his media session the Red Bull driver pointed at the new regulations and called them “anti-racing,” and stated that the cars feel “more like Formula E on steroids.”

“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.”

Under the new regulations, the cars for this season see a near 50/50 split between battery power and the Internal Combustion Engine (ICE). From Verstappen’s perspective, that has led to a car that you cannot drive “flat out.”

“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. Maybe it’s then better to drive Formula E, right? Because that’s all about energy, efficiency and management,” said Verstappen.

“We’re energy poor. I just want normal driving, just how it should be without having to [say]: ‘Oh, if I brake a bit longer or less or more, or one gear up or down.’ It so heavily impacts the performance on the straights. Plus, the grip at the moment is quite low with these tyres and the car configuration. It is a big step back to how it was.”

Verstappen is not alone in this opinion. Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton also noted the amount of “lift-and-coast” drivers need to do to manage battery power in this generation of cars.

“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. Here (in Bahrain), we’re not having to do that because there’s lots of braking zones,” said Hamilton on Wednesday.

“The low gears that we have to go down into is just because we can’t recover enough battery power,” continued the seven-time champion.

“We can’t recover enough battery power, so that’s why we have to go and rev the engines very, very, very high. So we’re going down to second and first in some places just to try to recover that extra bit of power.”

Returning to Verstappen, the Red Bull driver noted that if it were up to him, the new regulations would be much different.

“Honestly, the proportion of the car looks good, I think. That’s not the problem. It’s just everything else that is a bit, for me, anti-racing,” continued Verstappen. “Probably people will not be happy with me saying this right now. But I am outspoken and why am I not allowed to say what I think of my race car? I can’t help that.

“I mean, I didn’t write the regulation. If it was, I think, up to non-political aspects of making a regulation, I think, anyway, the car would have probably have looked very different.”

F1’s second round of pre-season testing concludes on Thursday.

But it is unlikely Verstappen’s mind will have changed by then.