Fernando Alonso misses the freedom in cockpit for F1 drivers in current era of racing, which is hugely dependent on technology.
Over the years, the dependency on technology has increased in F1, especially with all the technological advancements in general. Outside of that, the sport has tightened screws on engine mode and certain other factors which limits the role of team and even drivers in the cockpit.
They have DRS to play with but the use of that is mandated as well at one part of the circuit and within a specified gap unlike its predecessor KERS, where drivers had some freedom to use the six seconds boost, whether to overtake to gain and or defend its position.
Having gone through several regulation changes and preparing for another one, Aston Martin’s Alonso misses some of the old ones where driver had a bit more freedom to play around from inside the cockpit. “I think so, I don’t know, I mean, we need to wait and see how the [2026] cars perform and how difficult or easy they are to drive,” he said to media.
“But yeah, I mean, I miss the days that we had more freedom in the cockpit to change our parameters or change the performance of the car. In the past, we used to play a little bit with the revs on the engine, certain laps per weekend, we had the maximum power. Then the KERS was introduced, we had six seconds of freedom ourselves to play with that, so we didn’t use always the same places that were optimal, that was only used in qualifying.
“Then in the race you play a different strategy just to be able to overtake or to defend from the cars behind. So yeah, I miss those days. I don’t know if next year we will have any of those. For me, it seems still a little bit too much automatic.
“So the car is on the straight line mode or maximum downforce mode automatically and the energy will be deployed more or less automatically as well as this year. So yeah, I still miss a little bit of freedom or more freedom for drivers,” summed up Alonso.
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