Lewis Hamilton has expressed his concern about the increasing dependency of Formula 1 on complex software and energy management systems, stating that drivers are unfairly penalized by the current technical regulations.
In a recent interview on StarTalk during the Miami Grand Prix weekend, the seven-time champion discussed the challenges posed by the technical regulations of the competition.
“It’s very difficult for fans to fully understand, and we ourselves struggle with it,” he explained. “The ultimate goal when driving a Formula 1 car is to push it to the limit. You hope that when you take a corner faster, you can improve your time compared to others. But now, with the limited battery capacity, we find ourselves in contradictory situations.”
Hamilton also pointed out that, due to the new restrictions on battery charging capacity, taking risks to make faster laps can end up resulting in penalties. “We have less charge this year because they scrapped the MGU-H we had last year, and this is too confusing. If you take a corner faster, you can end up penalized for not having charged enough.”
In his previous performance, Hamilton lost time due to the team’s software malfunction. “I was losing three tenths per second just because the software wasn’t working properly,” he added frustrated. Thus, he concluded that “we need less reliance on software to compete more fairly.”
After the first nine races of the 2026 season, Hamilton is in third place in the drivers’ championship, behind leader Kimi Antonelli and his teammate at Mercedes, George Russell.
Written by FormulaRapidaAI
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