> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.the-race.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Italian GP tipped for mad 'MotoGP-style' race with F1 2026 cars - URL: https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/overtaking-records-messy-qualifying-f1-braced-wild-monza/ - Published: 2026-09-03T10:47:55.000Z - Updated: 2026-09-03T12:02:52.000Z - Description: F1 figures are bracing for the potential of a wild Italian GP weekend, as slipstream is expected to massively impact both qualifying and the race - Author: Jon Noble - Tags: Formula 1, #italian-grand-prix, #primary_homepage_feature Formula 1 figures are bracing for the potential of a particularly wild Italian Grand Prix weekend at Monza, as slipstream is expected to massively impact both qualifying and the race. Aston Martin trackside chief Mike Krack has forecast "a record of all times" in terms of overtaking in the grand prix, while 22-car Q1 - due to the massive benefit of towing and complexities of energy strategies - is particularly at risk of being dominated by the efforts to catch a slipstream. F1 is heading to one of the most challenging venues for the new turbo hybrid 2026 cars, with Monza's long straights meaning cars are going to run out of battery energy easily. Cars struggling for top speed on the straights, allied to the new active aero characteristics of straight and corner mode, means that there is now a much bigger benefit than there has been in recent years from receiving a tow. Being in the slipstream of the car ahead will not only help increase top speed marginally by reducing drag, but will also deliver gains in terms of battery deployment - as less energy will need to be burned to push the car through the air. Williams chief engineer Paul Williams reckons that slipstreaming could become a "significant tactic" once more. And Krack went as far as to express hope the gains do not trigger a repeat of what happened at Monza in 2019, when drivers tripped over themselves trying to get a slipstream at the end of qualifying. Asked by The Race if slipstream games were back in play at Monza this year, having fallen away in recent years, Krack said: "I think yes! "I think the lack of energy that you have here over the qualifying lap will manifest itself in people looking for that. "I hope we will not have a situation like 2019, certainly not in Q1 - but who knows what will happen? Nobody wants to be first probably, but I think there will be more of this than we have seen here recently." Cadillac driver Sergio Perez said of slipstreaming at Monza: "In previous generations it was \[already\] very critical. "Now it's going to become even more, with the lack of energy that we're going to experience. "We saw already in Spa it was around two seconds to a second and a half, so I think it's going to be really close. "It's going to be a bit messy \[in qualifying\] because everyone will be trying to get some towing." Measures are in place in modern F1 after the chaos of 2019 that should mitigate the issue, as the FIA has instituted a minimum laptime delta - but it's exceedingly rare for this to lead to a driver penalty, and the FIA may have to be stricter with enforcement this year than is convention. One question that will only be answered when cars are running together is whether excessive slipstreaming could prompt some safety concerns. This could become an issue if there are wildly different deployment strategies in play that mean there are big speed differentials between cars in areas of the track. Krack said: "Normally if you see the deployment profiles, they converge over a weekend - so I do not expect any major differences. "But if people deploy completely differently, then there is always a risk." ## Monza compromises F1 teams know that this weekend is going to be incredibly challenging from an energy management perspective and that some unusual tactics may need to come out. Krack felt that the new rules will force a completely different approach for teams. "Monza is a bit of a new game this year that we need to learn how to handle," he said. "I think all the teams will have to learn and maybe what we know about Monza is not necessarily true anymore." One of the main uncertainties for qualifying will be how best to unleash energy coming out of the final Alboreto or Parabolica corner for the start of a qualifying lap. Teams will have to work out where the best place is to go on full power to maximise speed for the start of the lap, but without burning up so much battery that they run short before the first chicane. Despite the FIA's measures to combat these issues of energy starvation, Perez said: "You're going to get into this situation where if you went half a percent too much in one corner on throttle, it's going to cost you even a few tenths. "Belgium \[Spa-Francorchamps\] was very critical in that regard and I expect that here it's going to be, like, the worst of them all." ## MotoGP-style racing? Krack suggested Monza could produce an extreme level of yo-yo racing. He said it remained unclear how easy overtaking would be, but expected it will "probably will be a record of all times here, or like MotoGP". Though Monza's layout should naturally lead itself to this kind of racing, that hasn't really been the case in F1 in recent years - with the venue struggling to deliver much in the way of wheel-to-wheel action, though Formula 2 and Formula 3 have remained "overtake-fests". This time, the expectation is of a grand prix more in line with those kinds of categories. "Top speeds are way down from the past - which is a bit of a shame, but on certain straights you can make a bigger difference than before when it comes to defending or attacking," said Cadillac driver Valtteri Bottas. "It's been normally a good place for racing anyway but now it adds another element of more dynamic racing here. So no doubt there's going to be plenty of overtakes." Rookie Arvid Lindblad was more pessimistic, though, after what he described as "the most confusing sim session of the year" in preparation for Monza's unique energy challenges. "I think the first two laps will be interesting, depending where you spend your energy you'll pass three cars and then lose to three cars," he said. "\[After that\] I don't know if there's going to be much passing. "I think the difference to other tracks, even energy-starved ones, if you use the boost it takes you one lap to recover, so you're a bit slow on the next two or three straights, but one lap after you're alright, whereas here it takes a lot longer to recover. So basically if you use the boost, you gain on one straight, but then you're so slow for the next three laps. "So I think it will... you could call it 'yo-yo racing' maybe, but I just think it will be really bad yo-yo racing. Even in the past it used to be decent, we would actually be passing each other, whereas now it's just, you're going to pass the guy and then you're just going to lose a second and a half. I don't know what to expect, but I'm not very optimistic."