F1's latest rule tweaks, explained in plain terms. Plus: Mario Andretti wrote a column for us!
Welcome back to Prime Tire, where we have a satisfying GIF for you, courtesy of Alex Palou’s pit crew at Long Beach on Sunday:
NTT IndyCar Series
Come on. That’s mesmerizing. (And it won him the race.)
Anyway. I’m Patrick, and Madeline Coleman will be along shortly. Let’s get to it.
A Sobering Reminder: Two races, 2 continents, 2 tragedies
Driver Juha Miettinen died after sustaining fatal injuries at the Nordschleife during the 24 Hours of Nürburgring Qualifiers Race 1 on Saturday, following a multi-car crash.
The following day, at Round 2 of the FIA CODASUR Rally Championship in Argentina, driver Didier Arias clipped a dirt mound and barrel-rolled into a spectator area. Both Arias and his co-driver were uninjured, but one spectator died and two others were injured.
Miettinen was 66. He was racing at the Nordschleife because that’s what he loved to do. Someone in Argentina drove out to watch cars on a Sunday and didn’t come home.
I’m reminded of the 2023 Australian Grand Prix, when a fan was left bleeding after being struck by debris. When we contacted him for a story, he said:
“That’s why we watch it, I guess. Not for crashes, but we watch it because it’s extreme, because it’s dangerous, because it’s a car race with hunks of metal running around the track at 300 (kilometers) an hour.
“There’s no way that you can have that risk-free.”
He’s right, of course — but it doesn’t make weekends like this past one any easier to sit with.
Rule Changes: Minor tweaks approved for the Miami GP
F1’s teams, manufacturers and governing body all agreed yesterday on a package of rule changes for Miami. Here are three key things they decided, explained as best I could in 50 words or fewer:
Reducing the qualifying recharge limit. The cars have been harvesting so much electrical energy mid-lap that drivers can’t stay flat out through F1’s greatest corners. (Suzuka’s 130R became a recharging zone. A recharging zone! The indignity.) The new limit cuts how much energy can be recouped per lap, so drivers will actually have to drive.
What it won’t fix: the speed drop-offs on the straights that have become the regulations’ most grating image. Less recharging means less energy overall, which means more of the lap spent without battery power.
Increasing superclip power (250kW ➡️ 350kW). Even at full throttle, the 2026 cars can slow themselves down to recharge their batteries. This is a maddening quirk behind the wheel, as you can imagine. This change makes the recharging happen faster, so the slowdown window shrinks.
What it doesn’t fix: The fundamental physics of circuits like Suzuka, which simply don’t have enough hard braking zones to replenish what the engine spends.
Capping Boost power in races. One driver hits Boost. Suddenly, he’s traveling 30 mph faster than the guy ahead of him, who used his Boost half a lap earlier and has nothing left. That speed differential is where Ollie Bearman’s 50G crash in Japan came from. The cap puts a ceiling on how fast one car can close on another. This one probably matters more than the others.
One thing you should note: These aren’t overhauls. They won’t fundamentally change the way F1 goes racing this season. Like I warned last week in our WhatsApp channel, they’re incremental tweaks on the margins rather than full-on “Baby Out With Bathwater.” The baby is still here, but the bathwater is fresh, and nobody is throwing anyone into anything yet — which is good, because I hear the Miami GP marina is fake.
Pauline Ballet / Formula 1 via Getty Images
History: The first woman to drive a Mercedes F1 car
Doriane Pin drove a Mercedes F1 car on Friday and couldn’t stop smiling. Pin, the 2025 F1 Academy champion, nicknamed the “Pocket Rocket,” was once told she was too small to drive a go-kart. On Friday, the 22-year-old completed 76 laps around Silverstone in Mercedes’ 2021 car and became the first woman ever to test for the team (and the first Frenchwoman to drive modern F1 machinery). Her father, her partner and her childhood best friend were all there to watch.
Loved this detail: Pin’s fastest lap of the day was her last one. She was still improving by lap 76, which either speaks to how steep the F1 learning curve is or to how much more she has to unlock. Probably both!
Madeline’s story is full of other fun details, including that Pin brought notes on braking advice from George Russell and Kimi Antonelli, and got emotional when she saw the car with her racing number on it for the first time.
The path here wasn’t straightforward. But she’s here. “Maybe I can have another one if they are happy,” Pin said afterward.
Read Madeline’s full story here.
And now, off to the paddock for more from Madeline: Inside the Paddock with Madeline Coleman: The human side of this ‘spring break’
Sustainability is a hot topic within the F1 paddock, but one aspect that can be overlooked is how the humans of the sport maintain some sense of healthy balance amid (what once was) a 24-race global calendar.
The 2026 F1 season, before the cancellation of the Bahrain and Saudi Arabian GPs, posed a monumental task for the paddock to overcome. Once Lando Norris secured his first world championship in Abu Dhabi on Dec. 7, the teams carried out postseason tests in the subsequent days. This is the norm. But the teams needed to turn their 2026 cars around quite quickly, all while also abiding by the operational regulations.
Teams face two shutdowns a year: a 14-day stretch in July and/or August and a nine-day stretch in late December. In 2026, that’ll start on Dec. 24.
Upon returning in the new year, the Barcelona shakedown week was a mere few weeks away, followed by two three-day preseason testing sessions in Bahrain come February. The offseason practically disappeared in preparation for this regulation overhaul.
During his team’s season launch in January, Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies even said, “We would not want that to be the setup every offseason.”
“I think in hindsight, it’s something we probably have missed as a sport when we went into these regulations,” he added. “It felt completely natural to say, ‘Well, we used to have three days (of) tests. Let’s do a lot more testing. Let’s test in January. Let’s do three sessions.’ But it’s true that, as a result, the level of stress on the people is very high.”
If the calendar stayed as it was, every month in 2026 would’ve had F1 cars on track in some fashion, whether it be testing or competition. But April is now race-free, and it’s given team personnel a rare opportunity to recharge the batteries (no pun intended) and reset ahead of the Miami Grand Prix.
Work is still ongoing back at the factories as teams look for ways to improve their car packages, and senior writer Luke Smith recently wrote more on how the drivers and F1 teams are spending their breaks.
But five weeks is a long time without a race. Kimi Antonelli said Friday during a media roundtable call, “I’m not gonna lie. The break, on one side, has been good, but now it starts to feel a bit too long.” And it’s a sentiment many fans share. The Miami Grand Prix takes place next week, but it is the only race in an eight-week stretch.
Back over to Patrick!
On Line 1: Mario Andretti wrote a column for us
“I despise mediocrity.”
When you find out Mario Andretti is writing something for The Athletic, you assume you’ll get something like that as the lede. He didn’t disappoint!
The whole piece is like that. One of the greatest American drivers of all time (and one of the driving forces behind Cadillac’s return to the F1 grid) wrote about what it actually takes to stay at the top for our Peak desk.
My favorite bit: His crew chief once told him beating A.J. Foyt was “out of the question.” He went and beat him. My takeaway: The gap between competitive and dominant is often less about talent (though Andretti had plenty) than about refusing to accept the ceiling other people set for you. You push forward anyway.
Another great quote from Andretti: “Things that are easy, anyone can do them,” the 86-year-old writes. “That’s not satisfying.” I will play devil’s advocate: Has he ever peeled the plastic off a new TV? Twirled a walking stick like it’s Darth Maul’s double-bladed lightsaber? Those are easy and satisfying. Andretti is a legend, but I’m not sure he knows what he’s talking about here.
Read Andretti’s column here.
Back over to Patrick!
Outside the Points
🏍️ Liberty Media wants to do to MotoGP what it did with F1. (Make a bazillion moneys.) Adam Crafton has the full story on what that playbook looks like the second time around, and whether the “Drive to Survive” lightning can strike twice.
🦖 Haas arrived in Japan with a 10-foot Godzilla model, a special livery and a car that had quietly put itself fourth in the constructors’ championship. Luke Smith spent time in the garage at Suzuki watching it all unfold. A lovely piece of paddock access, and a reminder that the smallest team on the grid is having the most fun right now.
🔋 Mercedes has won every race this season and leads the constructors’ by 45 points. Toto Wolff would nonetheless like everyone to know that any midseason engine upgrades for rivals had better not be too good. The FIA’s catch-up system was designed as a “catch-up mechanism,” he said, “not a leapfrog mechanism.” So like Heinz, not Frogger. (If you immediately got that joke, shame on all of us.)
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