The new Formula 1 rules have sparked debate and differing opinions on a wide range of matters, not least what makes for good racing.
F1 boasted about the huge number of overtakes in the season-opening Australian Grand Prix, which was lauded by some but ridiculed by most. It exposed an issue at the very heart of racing: what makes for good racing and is more overtaking always better.
Our international writers provide their views.
The optics are often misleading
Stuart Codling, Autosport:
Among the more spurious pieces of cant issued by the commercial rights holder to defend the 2026 Formula 1 regulations is that “the fans” have been complaining for years that they wanted to see more overtaking, and that this has now been delivered. So what are you all complaining about, then? Pipe down!
F1 points to fan-satisfaction surveys, which appear to indicate that a significant proportion of the audience is of the more-is-better persuasion. It is, however, easy to poke holes in the methodology of these statistics.
The argument against more-is-better is that when overtaking moves are showered around like confetti, and based on little more than relative battery levels, the spectacle is devalued. Especially so when the battery levels and software algorithms that determine who passes whom are background operations, largely invisible to the spectator.
This is a valid argument – but is scarcity in itself a good thing? Maybe, maybe not.
There are those who hold that the 2005 San Marino Grand Prix is among the most exciting races of all time simply because Michael Schumacher didn’t manage to overtake Fernando Alonso in the final half of the race. But you could also argue this is a textbook example of so-called ‘peak-end effect’, the cognitive bias whereby viewers over-rate an experience as a whole because of the emotions they felt at its peak.
Indeed, there were those in our editorial meeting this week who opined that actually San Marino 2005, taken as a whole, was quite a boring race. But here we’re entering the territory of other cognitive biases influenced by our knowledge of the outcome.
Such is life on the hedonic treadmill: we never allow ourselves to be happy with what we’ve got.
Sometimes the chase is better than the catch
Filip Cleeren, Motorsport.com Global:
When this discussion comes up I'm often reminded of two extremes, the 2005 San Marino Grand Prix and the 2013 Indy 500.
Famously, at Imola Alonso was hounded lap after lap by Schumacher in the Ferrari, with the great German unable to find a way past. It was tough to keep your eyes off, and that was without an overtake actually being made. Sometimes the chase is better than the catch.
I was lucky enough to be at the 500 in 2013 and witness a popular win for Tony Kanaan, but the race really made the history books for its mind-boggling 68 overtakes for the lead. That's one every three laps. As the cars were back then, with their bulky rear bumpers, the leader was a sitting duck, so while passes at the start and finish of the race were significant and entertaining, the majority in the middle part of the race felt inconsequential and artificial.
Finding a happy middle ground, to me, is about ensuring driving skill is making a difference. F1 cars should be difficult enough to drive so drivers are punished for mistakes, and it should be easy enough to follow for the driver behind to pounce on those, or make a difference on pure pace but without just breezing past early on the straights.
I'd gladly take a couple fewer overtakes than we have seen in 2026 without some of the battery-induced 'yo-yo racing', but I also understand a return to 2005 is not going to cut it from a spectator point of view. F1 must find a way to balance meritocracy versus entertainment, which is easier said than done in a post-refuelling era with less room for strategy to make a difference.
There's no value in overtakes made "by accident"
Stefan Ehlen, Motorsport.com Germany:
It all depends on what you define as an “overtake”: a genuine move where one driver outbrakes another and earns the position through skill and racecraft? Or an artificial pass in the DRS era, where one driver simply happens to be able to deploy more power at a given moment?
Personally, I vastly prefer genuine overtaking moves — quality over quantity. Since the introduction of the Drag Reduction System (DRS) in the 2011 season, Formula 1 has seen far too many cheap position changes, which then hit new heights at the start of the 2026 season under the new technical regulations with all the “energy management” involved.
Of course, people are free to enjoy these constant position swaps. They certainly look spectacular. But to me, many of them feel rather meaningless because they are so heavily dependent on circumstance. When even the drivers themselves admit that they sometimes overtake “by accident” because the tech-assisted car effectively dictates the move, then the sporting value of such manoeuvres has to be questioned.
I would much rather see a handful of real overtakes per race — moves that are carefully set up, preceded by a hard-fought battle, or executed with genuine cleverness. Simple drive-by passes do very little for me personally. They lack the element of sporting achievement.
No, even though that's what many fans wanted (and now reject)
Jose Carlos de Celis, Motorsport.com Spain:
All too often, social media has been flooded with comments labelling any random F1 race as “the most boring,” precisely because of a lack of overtaking and, just as frequently, the existence of those DRS trains where no one passes anyone. Everyone happily embraced the idea that by 2026 there would be more overtaking, forgetting that this isn’t always synonymous with more excitement, and now that’s precisely what many are criticising.
People say that the overtaking in 2026 is artificial, forgetting that DRS was too, and although I’m not a strong defender of these rules - I will have gone mad the day I love an F1 car that runs out of power on the straights - but wasn’t more overtaking what fans were asking for?
Every April (or every time F1 returns to Imola), videos go viral reminding us that two decades ago, at the 2005 and 2006 San Marino GPs, first Alonso won by fending off Schumacher for many laps, and the following year Schumacher did the same. And speaking of Alonso, I’m sure most of his fans remember with more excitement - beyond the podiums he achieved in 2023 - the 2021 Hungarian GP where Esteban Ocon won, partly thanks to a masterful defence by Alonso against Lewis Hamilton.
In other words, thrilling battles don’t always have to end in overtakes, because they can also be great moves to hold position. Although there would always be another aspect to criticise. Because it's said that 'you can't please everyone', and I’d add that you can never create F1 rules that please everyone.
It's about quality, not quantity
Federico Faturos, Motorsport.com Latin America:
I'll be very honest here: Formula 1 celebrating the sheer number of overtakes at the start of this new rules era felt, at best, like a complete misreading of the situation. And things only became worse when Stefano Domenicali himself kept pushing the narrative as though it were the greatest thing imaginable, only for Nigel Mansell to explain what the reality actually looks like.
Of course, a race with overtaking is better than a race without overtaking. But that alone does not tell the full story. If those passes happen beyond the driver's control because the battery deployment had already decided the outcome, if they occur simply because one driver has used up his energy and is left defenceless afterwards… then yes, technically, they are overtakes. But what is their real value?
Maybe it is because I am getting close to 40 and no longer fully align with the logic of younger audiences, although I have always considered myself old school when it comes to debates like this. I never liked DRS either. Even that already felt artificial.
An overtake at the pinnacle of motorsport should be the result of a racing driver — an athlete — pushing their machine to the absolute limit of grip, braking impossibly late, committing completely, forcing their way past a rival who is simultaneously doing everything possible to defend and hold on to track position.
Does anyone genuinely remember any of the hundreds of overtakes we have seen so far during the 2026 season? Has any of them truly stood out? Will people still be sharing clips of them on social media 10 years from now?
The answer is no. We will still remember moves like Nelson Piquet on Ayrton Senna at Hungary 1986, Mansell against Piquet at Silverstone 1987, Mika Hakkinen on Schumacher at Spa in 2000, or Juan Pablo Montoya on Schumacher at Brazil 2001, just to name a few.
Formula 1 does not need more overtakes. It needs more unforgettable ones.
