A 2026 F1 demand that feels impossible for drivers to manage

It has been likened by one senior team figure to making Formula 1 drivers play the popular children's game Bop It!

But unlike following orders to Twist it, Pull it or Flick it, F1's equivalent is a lot less entertaining and the consequences are much bigger when you slip up.

We are talking about the complexities drivers face on qualifying preparation laps with the 2026 cars, an aspect of race weekends that is gathering attention as something that needs addressing.

Demands to be at the maximum throttle in one location, less than 60% throttle at another, not over-charge the battery here and don't let the turbo pressure drop there – and all the while juggling tyre temperatures and traffic – are overloading drivers.

While comparisons to Bop It! are fun, there are some within the paddock who think that the matter is very serious and the workload is too extreme.

Williams team boss James Vowles told The Race: "It's far too much that we're asking the drivers to do.

"They're trying to get the tyres ready, which means getting them within about two degrees temperature window.

"On top of that, making sure they're dealing with the traffic on the outlap. Then go out of the penultimate corner and give yourself a specific gap.

"Go to full throttle, then come off full throttle. But don't go to zero throttle – so go to somewhere between 20/30/40% and make sure the battery is at the right point here.

"And by the way, there's traffic coming along so deal with that, and then go through the last corner flat out.

"That's four seconds I've just described. It is too much, and we've got to find a way of simplifying that fundamentally."

'Everything is so sensitive'

Vowles' comments came after a Miami weekend where his driver Alex Albon was one of many who found their qualifying laps ruined because of imperfect prep laps.

On each occasion, drivers found that things that had gone on during the prep lap, sometimes through no fault of their own, that left them lacking deployment across the start/finish line.

This cost Kimi Antonelli a shot at pole position in sprint qualifying, hurt Lando Norris's bid in main qualifying that "screwed" him from the off, and meant Albon did not make it out of Q2.

On each occasion, the drivers had no instant explanation for why things had not gone as planned – and it was only later, when digging into the data, the reasons became clear.

And just like with the famous power limited pending phenomenon that had caught Charles Leclerc out in sprint qualifying in China, the problems in Miami were related to quirks and algorithms that are not intuitive nor what many would consider normal driving.

In Norris's case, although McLaren would not offer specifics about what had happened, everything pointed to the turbo pressure having not been boosted enough through the final corner.

So, with the MGU-K then kicking in to fill in the gaps, it meant some electrical energy that would have assisted that run towards Turn 1 had been taken away to help the internal combustion engine – so the battery pack was not as full as it needed to be.

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella said: "Everything is so sensitive, is so interlaced.

"So it's not simply where you deploy your energy. It's also how the deployment of your energy is sensitive to some other things that happen, for instance, in part throttle."

Albon's trouble was clearer to explain – and highlights best just how many things drivers are having to juggle and why unintended consequences can derail it all.

Strict instructions

Listening to the onboard radio of the Q2 outlap where Albon hit trouble, the critical part comes in the run down the back straight where the final build up is done to get the power unit into the right window for the last turn.

Coming out of the penultimate corner, the Turn 16 chicane, Albon is given the order: "It's going to be full throttle, then 60%...full throttle for three seconds."

There are two specific instructions here that are aimed at getting the battery into the right charge state.

The first is maximum acceleration out of the corner for three seconds, which targets a well spooled-up turbo and clearing out the battery of any energy it has stored.

With throttle at more than 98%, the engine will be into power limited mode where energy will be discharged at a level that has been pre-programmed by the team.

This is important because teams do not want their drivers braking for the final corner, and going through a harvesting phase, if the battery is already close to 100%.

If that happens, and a battery is at the top of the pack, then the MGU-K cannot convert any more power into energy – and that means it can offer no assistance in spooling up the turbo. The consequence of that is bad acceleration.

It is similar to what happens at race starts, when the MGU-K is out of action until the cars hit 50km/h so it is difficult for drivers to get things in the right window.

As McLaren's technical director of performance Mark Temple explained earlier this year: "The turbo spools better when there is load on the engine, free revving it while stationary doesn't provide much load.

"The MGU-K can provide a load against the engine, recharging the battery in the process, but if the battery is already full, then it can't provide a load, and the turbo won't spool well.

"At low throttle, you're running less air through the engine, so less air is available to spin the turbo.

"At high throttle, more air enters the engine, and more fuel is burnt, generating more heat and gas expansion, which in addition to more air flow, drives the turbo faster.

"But if you just floor it without any load, you hit the rev limiter and fuel flow/throttle opening is cut off."

The second request for Albon to be at less than 60% throttle is because that is the arbitration point where the ICE component can be used alone – so it is keeping the turbo spooled up without any requirement to waste battery power.

Running down the backstraight at below 60%, Albon is then advised to go for "three seconds of LICO [lift and coast]."

This will be the prime amount that will have been calculated to get the battery from empty to full, ready for Albon to then hit full throttle to spool the turbo up and having the best deployment across the line.

But everything goes wrong for Albon when he has to back off to let traffic through – which ironically on this occasion was his team-mate Carlos Sainz.

In getting out of the way, Albon lifts off the throttle entirely, unexpectedly harvesting some energy. And then crucially, in going to 0% throttle, resets the algorithms on his car.

So when he accelerates, especially aggressively before the corner, it automatically triggers some energy usage – which hadn't been originally calculated.

That then gave him an offset between the energy that his car system expected him to have, and what he actually had – and left him down on power through the final corner and across the start/finish line which meant his qualifying effort was pretty much over before it began.

He lost 0.35 seconds by Turn 1, which in F1's midfield is an age.

Lamenting what happened afterwards Albon said: "You try to be nice and get out of the way, but by getting out of the way you overharvest and you basically ruin your own start. It's tough out there."

Capacity overload

The layout of Miami was particularly tricky, with there being a long straight and then a tight corner where the risk of over-harvesting was extreme to derail a qualifying lap.

But expect similar stories in Montreal this weekend, where there is that long run out of the hairpin prior to the chicane where again drivers are going to have to perfect their state of charge, throttle positions and not risk hitting to the top of the pack.

Albon echoes his boss Vowles's thoughts about there potentially being unnecessary overload.

"I think all the drivers, honestly, we are absolutely at the top of our capacity to manage the tyres, the traffic and the PU," he said.

The question really is, for outlaps, is such over-complication necessary – especially considering we are not far away from a Monaco Grand Prix where qualifying is going to perhaps be the most complicated and overloaded for drivers all year.