"Fake F1": Driver's brutal takedown of sad state of the sport

MIAMI GP SCHEDULE

• FP1 – Saturday May 2, 1:30am
• Spring Qualifying – Saturday May 2, 6am
• Sprint race – Sunday May 3 1:30am
• Qualifying - Sunday May 3, 5:30am
• Race – Monday May 4, 6am

Aston Martin driver Lance Stroll has delivered an astonishing takedown of the current state of Formula One saying the new regulations have rendered the sport “fake”.

The Canadian is not the first and will not be the last of the current crop of 22 drivers to admonish the changes that were brought in for the 2026 season, with four-time world champion Max Verstappen likening the sport to Mario Kart earlier this year.

Drivers have complained about poor handling, the governing body’s commitment to prioritise energy management over pure racing after the introduction of the V6 hybrid engines with lift and cost tactics now obligatory.

Cars are losing power on straights and the new power boosts have often times seen double digit overtakes between two cars in the opening couple of laps.

The new generation regulations brough Aston Martin particular misery given the team managing just six laps in the final testing of the pre-season.

Both Stroll and Fernando Alonso went into the opening race of the season knowing they would not complete the 52 laps with the risk of permanent nerve damage as a direct result of their car set up a genuine possibility.

"All the part throttle stuff is just destroying the racing, so hopefully it is more normal to drive, and we don't think so much about the management and the lift and coast and all this stuff,” Stroll said in Miami ahead of the fourth race of the season.

"But I think we're so far away from proper F1 cars and pushing flat out, without thinking about batteries and all this stuff, it is just kind of a band-aid solution.

"We are miles off where we should be, and during the break, I was randomly watching old races and the Monaco Historic, and I heard some early 2000s Ferraris and how good they sounded and how small and nimble they were.

"I saw some onboards from the mid-2000s in the V10 era, and what it looks like versus now, you can hear the character of the cars, and just how much more intense and how much more exciting it looked back then, so it is a bit sad, but hopefully, we're heading back in that direction again.

"I think it is so fundamentally flawed, but I'm not an engineer, but it is just sad that we're in this situation now, and I don't have all the answers. I drove other cars over the break, I tested some F3 cars, and it is like 1000 times more fun and better to drive because you have your right foot, you give what you want, and you get what you want.

"Even the weight of the car, sometimes like 550-650 kilos, is a lot nicer than 750, 800 plus, so things like that make the cars more fun to drive.

"Then the sound, everyone hears the sound of the V8, V10 era and is going like: 'Wow, that is amazing, that is F1 when you hear it' and now, de-rating into a corner, I'm downshifting going into a corner with no character or no noise. It is fake.

"F1 is a business, and they want to protect their business and make it look good, and we're drivers, and we know what it feels like to drive good cars.

"So there are two different perspectives on it, and people are watching the sport no matter what, and watching Netflix and turning on Formula 1, and so F1 is happy.

"But the drivers, the fans, the people that really know about racing, who know what it was like before, and the drivers who know what it is really like to drive really good, proper cars, there is no hiding behind the fact that right now, it is not as good as it can be."

Piastri reveals he or Norris could have left McLaren in 2025

Oscar Piastri has revealed he or Lando Norris could easily have been forced to leave McLaren had they allowed the relentless speculation of in-house fighting get to them in 2025.

With both drivers fighting for the world title, there was no shortage of noise about supposed tensions behind the scenes at McLaren last season.

Claims of preferential treatment from management in favour of Norris were rife, rumours the team was plotting against Piastri despite him leading the drivers’ championship couldn’t be silenced and that ultimately the Aussie was set to leave.

He didn’t and the team stood firm on a “nothing to see here” narrative that remains in place. “Papaya rules” dictated a level playing field which many questioned as the season tipped in Norris’ favour with the Briton eventually crowned world champion.

So why didn’t it get nasty? F1 is a sport famous for rivalries and fallout.

How did Piastri’s relationship with Norris change across the tumultuous second half of 2025?

“I don’t think it really changed, which I don’t think anyone really believes, or they struggle to believe,” Piastri told the High Performance Podcast. “It’s very much down to how we are as people. I think we’re both quite good at separating people and what happens on the racetrack, versus off the racetrack.

“We get asked about our relationship as team-mates quite a lot, and I think probably, it was actually better at the back end of last year than it was in the first six months that we were getting to know each other, just because we know each other more and we’ve spent so much time around one another every year.

“It really didn’t change much, because I think we both knew the situation we were in with trying to beat each other, and only one of us could win. We knew all of that, but it never got nasty.

“And I think that’s a really important thing, because it would have been very easy for last year to have got nasty, and it would have been, if it really got bad, the question of whether one of us was even sat here doing this interview wearing orange.

“But I think just the team dynamic is so important to protect going forward. Obviously, we’ve not started this year quite the way we wanted, but it would have been so easy for the battle of last year to make it look ten times worse, and ten times worse for a long time.”

It’s not just within the parameters of McLaren that Piastri is wary of relationships and ensuring things remain cordial.

While the grid appears a friendly and jovial place, the Aussie admits he finds it hard to be genuine friends with people he races against 24 weeks of the year.

“In F1 there's a massive level of respect between all the drivers, but having respect for one another and being friends with one another are two very different things.

"For me, it's always hard to be genuine friends with somebody that 24 times a year you've got to go on track and prove that you're better than them, basically, or compete against them."

“I get on with a lot of the drivers, and there's definitely some I'm more friendly with than others — and again, some ex-team-mates that I've had in the junior ranks, because we're not racing against each other anymore.

“So it's a tricky old business."