Charles Leclerc has said he cannot imagine how the racing will be in Formula 1 next year after labelling his first simulator run with a 2026 car as "not enjoyable".
The switch to all-new engine regulations next year, which rely more on battery power, has left F1 facing a situation where the cars are likely to be energy-starved.
This risks leaving them running out of boost on the straights and needing to adopt some strange behaviours, like running high revs in corners, to harvest power.
Chassis rules have had to be compromised as a result – reducing drag and downforce to try to help counter things.
While work has gone on over the past 18 months to try to address early fears about F1 facing some silly situations, Leclerc has offered some fresh insight into where things are at right now.
Following a first run in Ferrari’s Maranello simulator over the past few days, his impressions are not so positive.
“Let's say it's not the most enjoyable race car I've driven so far, but we are still in a moment where the project is relatively new,” he said.
“My hope relies on the fact that it will evolve quite a bit in the next few months, but I think it's no secret that I think the regulations for next year are going to be a lot, probably, less enjoyable for drivers to drive.
“So yeah, I'm not a big fan of it for now. But it's the way it is.
"At the end of the day I think there's a challenge, and I would like the challenge of maximising a very different car to what it is at the moment. But do I enjoy it? Probably not.”
Pushed by The Race on whether it was the lack of downforce or the extreme energy harvesting that he did not like, Leclerc said: “I think both. Probably the second one a bit more than the first.
“It's just strange to... I just don't imagine yet how racing will look like, and how cool the overtaking will be next year with this new regulation.
“This is something that I know people, teams, and the FIA are aware of, and there's probably some work to be done on that. I don't know how much it will change from now on, though.”
Leclerc is the only Ferrari driver to have tried the 2026 car out on the simulator so far, with team-mate Lewis Hamilton expected to get a run soon.
Hamilton, who said he “had heard” Leclerc did not like it, explained: “He only just started out, like two days ago or even yesterday, so I haven't started that yet. The main reason is the model is not finished but probably sometime soon I will be able to.”
Leclerc is not the first driver to have voiced concerns about how the 2026 cars will shape up – with Red Bull’s Max Verstappen having been particularly outspoken in the past about his early impressions of it in the simulator.
While a great deal of work has gone into improving the rules since the Dutchman first tried them out, he said he was still not completely won over by how they felt at the moment.
Verstappen said of how it's evolved: “I’m in the middle. Maybe good, maybe bad – we’ll see. I’m very open-minded, honestly. I don’t even think about it too much – just enjoying the moment.
“When I sit in the car next year, we’ll figure it out. I’m not making the rules anyway. Even if I have my concerns, it’s not going to change anything.
"So I’ll just jump in and drive it, and then we’ll, along the way, get better at it, understand it better – like any regulation in the past. You keep optimising, keep improving, and then just go from there, really.”
The FIA recently rubber-stamped changes to next year's regulations that helped ease some energy concerns by limiting the amount of energy that can be harvested at some venues.
With it likely to be a challenge at some tracks without heavy braking zones to achieve the maximum charge of 8.5MJ per lap, a provision had previously been put in the rules to limit this to 8MJ at some venues.
Now, however, an extra rule has been added that allows the FIA to pull this back to 5MJ when required.
The new article of the regulations states that this will happen "at competitions where the FIA determines that the harvesting strategies required to achieve the above limit are excessive".
