The new technical regulation will "occupy a lot of brain space," claims Sainz

Having completed several test runs in the simulator with Williams 2026 F1 car, four-time Grand Prix winner, Carlos Sainz stated that it will be "very complicated" to get used to the new technology.

Although there are still ten races to complete this season, teams have already begun their preparing for Formula 1's technical overhaul which will lead to all-new cars in 2026. However, the prospect of new regulations is not welcomed equally by all.

Since the start of the current season, most of the teams have organized simulator test sessions for their drivers to get an initial feedback of the brand-new technology which could also provide the engineers with references and benchmarks they can orientate their development work around.

Following their first runs in the simulator, several drivers were left to share negative comments regarding the new cars, including Max Verstappen, Charles Leclerc, Alex Albon and Lance Stroll, with most of them claiming that the new formula could become more of a management exercise rather than pure racing.

Asked to offer his initial thoughts regarding the new technology and reveal how different it will be for drivers, Williams driver Carlos Sainz stated that it will be "very complicated" to get used to.

"Very complicated. It occupies a lot of brain space while you're driving. But I think if you ask… I think Lewis was in the big regulation change between 2013 and 2014—going from a normal V8 to a complex V6 with battery management and all these things.

"For sure, at the time it was a shock—how much the driver had to think about things that before, on the V8, we would never think about. But then we all got used to it, we all adapted, and now it feels normal. I think with next year it’s going to be something similar.

"At the beginning, we’re all like: what the hell is going on here? Why do we need to do so much of this? Why is the car feeling different every lap? But then, by the time we start racing with it and the races go by, everything will feel more natural—something we’re more used to—and it will become the new normal.

Asked whether the new formula will offer a better racing than a current one, Sainz noted: "The big question is whether that new normal is better than the old normal. That’s the million-dollar question that everyone wants to have a say on or have an opinion about.

"But I think as drivers, we’ll just adapt to whatever they give us. We’ll just go as fast as we can. If we have to do six or seven switch changes through a lap, we’ll do them. And we’ll just become good at it like we always do.

While the discussions about the all-new 2026 technical regulation usually focus on the new power units, there will be significant changes to aerodynamic configuration of the F1 cars as well.

With the arrival of the new power units that will feature a fifty-fifty ratio between the electric components and the internal combustion engine, the sport will introduce a host of aerodynamic changes. With these tweaks, the target is to make the cars more efficient and ensure they are able to perform similar lap-times to what we see now.

The primary tool to achieve this is 'active' aerodynamics. Previously banned – or, at least, heavily proscribed – in F1, it will allow the front and rear wings to be adjusted from corners to straights: opening to configure the car for less drag in a straight line, closing into the corners to provide more aerodynamic grip.

This aerodynamic reboot also serves as an opportunity to refine existing regulations. For 2026, the focus has been on reinforcing some of the concepts introduced in 2022 to promote better racing while getting rid of others that led to the cars being very uncomfortable to drive, most notably the 'porpoising' effect.

This effect is when cars aggressively bounce up and down through the range of their suspension travel, when airflow through contoured Venturi tunnels under the car first sucks them towards the track, and then stalls when the cars ground, in a process that repeats, like a porpoise skipping across the waves.

The new regulations remove the 'ground-effect' generating tunnels and return F1 cars to having flat undersides before a step into a conventional downforce-generating diffuser beneath the rear end.