Formula 1 must not over-react to how the opening races of 2026 play out, warns its CEO Stefano Domenicali, amid huge uncertainty about what grand prix racing's new rules era will look like.
As teams continue work on preparing their all-new cars and power units for next season, many of them are still voicing concerns about potential downsides of the new regulations.
However, the FIA insisted recently that a lot of potential issues have been ironed out already and F1 is in good shape to deal with any challenges to come.
This is a view shared by Domenicali, who suggests that recent negative comments from drivers need to be taken with a pinch of salt – because he suspects there may be political motivations to their criticism.
He sees the current scepticism as a repeat of what usually happens with big rule changes, where doubts expressed beforehand were never realised.
In our podcast with Domenicali where he answered questions on F1's future from The Race Members' Club, he replied "I would say the answer is absolutely not" when asked if he had any concerns about the 2026 rules based on recent driver comments.
"We don't have to forget that there are two approaches on new regulations," Domenicali continued. "One is tactical, and the teams are playing that game…and this leads to certain comments and views being made.
"They have some purpose to that [which] is not really the one that we believe, and is the one that is taking them to make some comments.
"The second is because it's still on an evolution path. I remember that the real discussion that we had with the FIA and the teams and the drivers at the beginning of the year, already today is totally different.
"So before even starting the new regulation, there is an evolution of things that go in the right direction.
"And where, at the beginning, I was hearing 'lift and coast, lift and coast', already today this argument is almost fading away.
"It's still there in maybe two, or three situations, but I'm pretty convinced that the relation is there between the teams and the FIA, because they are the one that, at the end of the day, needs to make sure that this adjustment of regulation will be solved."
Reacting in the right way
Domenicali is not blind, however, to the prospect of F1 facing some unexpected trouble with the new rules.
It is widely accepted that there is a risk of the competitiveness of the grid being spread out early on, or demands being put forward to help any manufacturer that has got things badly wrong.
But he thinks it would be a mistake for F1 to immediately dive into rule changes after next year's season opener in Australia if some things are not working as hoped.
Asked how F1 will approach any potential early trouble, Domenicali said: "The mindset is to be open to understand what is happening.
"Today there are so many theories that everything is possible. The right thing to do is, first of all, not to overreact, because we have seen in our experience of F1...that sometimes there has been always an overcautious approach and things have developed in different ways.
"So I would say, let's wait and see where we are. And then if there is the need to make some adjustment, we don't have to do it straight away.
"There is the time to wait a little bit to make sure that we understand exactly what we're talking about.
"There could be already, potentially, some teams or manufacturers that are thinking how to evolve the development of the car, taking the benefit of the new regulations.
"So the approach will be always to be curious. There will be an incredible attention of the first race of the year….but it is right to say that there is the need to give the right time and the right discussion with the FIA and the teams, to see if there are some big things that we are missing."
Two different worlds
With so much uncertainty about how the spectacle will play out next year, Domenicali said it was all too easy to simply focus on the negatives.
Instead, he thinks there is every chance that the regulations could throw up unexpected elements that add to the spectacle – and that the story of the new rules will change a lot over the course of the campaign.
"It is a huge opportunity," he said. "There are so many things that are new that it's a new world to discover.
"And we may have good surprises, because it's not only about power units, and it is not only about energy management. It is also related to the fact that the cars will be different.
"So the way that you manage that, the way that you are able to do the set-up in order not to destroy the tyres…there's so many things that we will learn next year.
"I'm pretty sure that if we do two pictures, one in the first race in Melbourne and one at the last race in Abu Dhabi, we will see two different worlds."
