Oscar Piastri has explained how F1 pre-season testing has allayed fears of new cars being “alien” for drivers.
The 2026 cars feature the single-biggest ever technical change from season-to-season in F1, with the new machines not only featuring new power units with a 50-50 split in power output between the internal combustion engine and beefed-up battery system, but also major changes to the chassis.
The cars are now smaller, narrower and also feature active aerodynamics with drivers having to re-learn their driving styles and adapt to new techniques, as they encounter less downforce after four seasons of the uber-high downforce ground effect cars.
However, Piastri believes that despite all the changes, an F1 car “still behaves how it should” and that they are not “as alien” as first feared.
“They definitely look pretty different to the last generation of cars, and are a bit smaller, which is always nice,” Piastri told media, including RacingNews365.
“They just look nimbler, and the front wing is much, much narrower, so they look cool, and they sound a little bit different.
“But in terms of driving them, there are some obvious, pretty big differences with how the power units work.
“There’s been a lot of talk and kind of speculation from everyone, including us as drivers, about what it was going to be like, so it was nice to get out in Barcelona and discover that it still is a Formula 1 car.
“It still behaves how a Formula 1 car should, in a lot of ways, and some of the things that we thought might be challenges, definitely are challenges, but not as alien as I think we might have feared.”