A rule change introduced for qualifying at the Japanese Grand Prix aimed at reducing the amount of ‘lifting and coasting’ required on a fast lap has been largely welcomed by drivers.
All five of F1’s power unit manufacturers – Mercedes, Ferrari, Red Bull-Ford, Audi and Honda – have unanimously agreed with the FIA to reduce the permitted energy recharge each lap in Saturday’s qualifying hour from 9.0 megajoules to 8.0 megajoules.
This means there should be less ‘super clipping’, when the car recharges its battery towards the end of a straight and slows down before a corner, so the drivers can attack turns more normally at a higher speed.
The new 2026 F1 cars have led to a different style of driving where drivers lift and coast or the power unit ‘super clips’ to optimise the engine’s output.
While this has led to an increase in overtaking, which has divided driver opinion, there has been a consensus that qualifying laps needed to change so the drivers can push closer to the limit of car performance.
The FIA said on Thursday that, together with the teams and engine makers, it “continues to embrace evolutions to energy management and that “further discussions scheduled in the coming weeks” into F1’s enforced five-week break.
On the likely impact of the tweak for this weekend’s Suzuka event, Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc said: “I don’t think it will be a game changer.
“I think it will be pretty similar, apart from for the driver where maybe there’s a little bit less lift and coast, which is I think a good thing.
Team-mate Lewis Hamilton said: “They have changed it coming into the weekend. When we were on the simulator, you were having to do a tonne of lift and coast, which is really, really not enjoyable to do, particularly for a qualifying lap.”
World champion Lando Norris said: “It’s different. I need to go out and drive with it first. I think it will eliminate some things and it will shift around some other bits.
“I think the thing is you also have tracks where it will be better. Some tracks it will work and be a much better thing, some tracks it won’t change too much.
“So it should be a little bit better here. It’s not like it’s going to change the whole world.”
Championship leader George Russell, whose Mercedes team have claimed both pole positions and race victories so far this season, also played down the likely impact of the change.
“It’s just a small detail. It doesn’t change anything,” said Russell.
“You can recover less from your battery, so it means you need to be slightly more wise with how you spend it. Hopefully, what it means is we’ll be going slightly slower in the middle of the straight, but slightly faster at the end of the straight.
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George Russell doesn’t think it’s right Mercedes are being slowed down by rule changes after two races.
“It’s small adjustment. I’ve yet to sort of see any data of the difference from what I drove on the simulator, so I’m not exactly sure.”
Max Verstappen has claimed the last four pole positions at Suzuka, although that run appears unlikely to continue this weekend given Red Bull have been off the pace of Mercedes and Ferrari so far this season.
Verstappen, an arch-critic of the 2026 regulations, said of the Suzuka tweak: “I’ve not practiced it on the simulator so I cannot give you a clear answer.
“It was before not flat-put, basically, so I hope this can be closer to flat out.”
Drivers keen to see more done to improve qualifying experience
One flip side of the tweak for this weekend is that there is slightly less battery power for drivers to exploit around the full lap.
“I mean it’s just making us even slower,” argued Haas’ Oliver Bearman.
“On one hand we don’t have to do any lift and coast any more, which is probably a bit better for us, but it just means we have to do a lot of… I mean we still have to recharge the energy and we spend a lot of time just with no energy because we’re losing one megajoule compared to what we had on the sim and prior to coming here.
“I think there’s better ways of achieving the same thing. If we could harvest at negative 350 kilowatts while on full throttle, I think it would make everyone’s lives a bit easier. But this is also a solution, I guess.”
And Leclerc believes there is scope for wider changes to improve the qualifying spectacle.
“I think for qualifying there are still some changes that need to be done to make sure that we can push at the maximum, whatever the limit of the car is,” he said.
“But at the moment, so far for the first two races, it was more about managing everything properly in qualifying rather than the actual flat-out push that we were used to in Q3 in the past years. So, there’s still some fine-tuning to be done on that, but I don’t think that this particular change will be a game changer for this weekend.”
Sky Sports F1’s Japanese GP schedule
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A look back at the wildest moments caught on the onboard camera at the Japanese Grand Prix.
Friday March 27
2am: Japanese GP Practice One (session starts at 2.30am)*
4.30am: Team Bosses’ Press Conference
5.45am: Japanese GP Practice Two (session starts at 6am)*
7.15am: The F1 Show*
Saturday March 28
2.15am: Japanese GP Practice Three (session starts at 2.30am)*
5am: Japanese GP Qualifying build-up*
6am: JAPANESE GP QUALIFYING*
8am: Ted’s Qualifying Notebook*
Sunday March 29
4.30am: Japanese GP build-up – Grand Prix Sunday*
6am: THE JAPANESE GRAND PRIX*
8am: Japanese GP reaction – Chequered Flag*
9am: Ted’s Notebook*
*Also live on Sky Sports Main Event
Formula 1 heads to the iconic Suzuka Circuit for the Japanese Grand Prix this weekend, live on Sky Sports F1. Stream Sky Sports with NOW – no contract, cancel anytime
