Silverstone’s distinctively fast and flowing layout delights Formula 1 drivers and fans alike – but perhaps less so this year, as the energy requirements of the latest cars threaten to neuter that spectacle.
Max Verstappen said last weekend in Austria that he had been moved to laughter after trying Silverstone out in the simulator. And that has become a recurring theme as other drivers are invited to provide an opinion.
“I think the next two races are going to be a different experience than what we’ve been used to driving in Silverstone and Spa,” Fernando Alonso told media including Autosport.
“Beautiful circuits in the past, especially with the [previous-generation] ground-effect cars. I think Silverstone was probably the best of the circuits, suiting that car perfectly.
“This year is going to be very different and not fun to drive the cars. Looking at the simulator laps and things like that it’s going to be quite sad, I think, for the drivers, but also for the spectators.”
Essentially, the problem lies in the circuit layout – or, rather, in the unequal distribution of opportunities to recharge the cars’ batteries. It will likely result in scenes reminiscent of the Australian and Japanese Grands Prix, where drivers had to harvest energy through super clipping into corners that were faster and more challenging for previous-generation cars.
The FIA staged a course-correction ahead of the Miami Grand Prix, introducing new limits on the amount of energy that can be harvested through the lap. But while this potentially reduces the need for super clipping, cutting the electrical capacity naturally has an effect on lap times and top speeds.
The Maggotts-Becketts-Chapel complex is one of the most challenging corner sequences on the F1 calendar, but drivers are now likely to have to harvest energy through here rather than attack it flat out
Photo by: Getty Images
Silverstone was always going to be a challenge for the new regulations because, after a rapid-fire sequence of corners early in the lap, straights followed by relatively fast corners begin to predominate. This becomes critical before one of the most cherished sequence of corners on the F1 calendar: the high-speed sweepers of Maggotts, Becketts and Chapel.
Before the cars arrive here, they will likely have deployed most of their energy on the run from Luffield along what used to be the start-finish straight. Copse, which follows, doesn’t require enough deceleration to meaningfully recharge the battery. So the cars will arrive at what used to be a stern test of driver and machine with much less power than in previous years – indeed, they may have to super clip there, or at least lift and coast.
Asked what Maggotts-Becketts-Chapel would be like under the 2026 regulations, Alonso was unequivocal: “a charging station”.
This will not come as music to the ears of the commercial rights holder, which remains highly sensitive to any criticism of the new regulations. The FIA has reduced the harvest limit for this weekend, and is likely to tweak the areas in which Straight Line Mode can be activated, but this will not address the issue of Maggotts-Becketts-Chapel being neutered.
What it has done, though, is annoy those teams who had drivers in the simulator on Monday to optimise their harvesting and deployment strategy for qualifying and the race.
“It’s tough because you spend your whole session optimising around a certain amount of deployment, a certain amount of clipping, and a certain amount of power in these places,” said Oliver Bearman, whose Haas team is using a simulator in Epsom, owned by Toyota, while its own in-house sim is under construction.
Lando Norris, McLaren
Photo by: Erik Junius
“And then they take away a megajoule and you’re, like, back to the drawing board. And they do it at a time where it’s impossible to then return to the sim and do it anyway, with our limited sim days.”
Lifting and coasting through Maggotts-Becketts-Chapel will have a more obvious effect on speed than the usual process of doing so at the end of straights as the electrical deployment tapers off. It will also be demoralising for the drivers who relished the challenge this sequence used to present.
“When you have the de-rate on the corner, it is a little bit worse experience than just at the end of the straights,” said Alonso. “Because you used to have, in your memory, you used to remember those corners being very challenging and you feel the G-forces – it was physically demanding into those corners. And now it is just much slower.
“The problem when you de-rate on the corners is also that your drag level is higher. You have the rolling resistance from the tyres turning the wheels. So, you lose the speed by the pure drag of the car, but you lose extra speed because you are turning the car.
“So, it doubles the effect on the corner.”
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– The Autosport.com Team
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