The Alex Albon F1 2026 prediction deemed ‘too early’ to say by FIA

Alex Albon’s claim that the mental load on drivers under the F1 2026 regulations will increase is “too early” to gauge, says the FIA’s single-seater director Nikolas Tombazis.

Albon recently suggested that the new regulations will require a lot of mental capacity from the drivers, due to the greater demands to exploit the electrical systems.

What did Alex Albon say?

With F1 introducing revolutionary new regulations for 2026, the chassis side sees the introduction of active aerodynamics, in order to ensure the laptimes remain relatively similar to what the current cars are capable of.

This is to work in tandem with the revised power unit rules, which will see the 1.6-litre V6 architecture remain but with increased electrification to split the ratio between combustion power and electrical close to 50/50.

Having had the chance to drive the new car in the simulator, Williams‘ Alex Albon recently explained that he believes the new regulations will increase the mental load on the drivers due to the requirement to adjust settings on the fly, as well as changing driving styles to optimise the demands of the very different machinery.

“It’s difficult to drive. The load on the driver, mentally, is high as well,” Albon told the media, including PlanetF1.com, in Belgium.

“It’s quite important to know how to use the engine and the deployment, and you have to learn a different driving style, but it’s part of the regulations.

“It’s technology, at the end of the day. So, on our side, I wasn’t that shocked by the car, the performance of the car.

“The drivers that are really going to go well on this are the ones that can be really adaptable.

“You’re gonna have to have a very open-minded approach to how to drive these cars, and I believe that the drivers who have the capacity to drive and understand how to drive them.

“Obviously, Formula 1 and the regulations also want the drivers to have no assistance on a lot of these things. There is a lot that the driver has to do.

“I don’t think it will always just purely be around how good the driver is around the corner, let’s say, like a driver who’s quite smart and can understand the system and abuse the system, understand how it works, and become efficient on it, they’re going to find performance in that as well. Much more than now.”

More on the F1 2026 regulations

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Nikolas Tombazis: Drivers with high mental capacity are always rewarded

Speaking about the F1 2026 regulations in a far-reaching exclusive interview with PlanetF1.com, FIA single-seater director Nikolas Tombazis believes Albon’s assessment is somewhat premature as he revealed there is still scope for some areas of management to become automated.

Added to that, he doesn’t believe much is changing in terms of mental demand, given that drivers with greater capacity have always thrived in Formula 1.

“I think it is a bit too early to make this statement,” he said.

“First of all, drivers with high mental capacity have been rewarded ever since the Ayrton Senna and Michael Schumacher years.

“It’s not like what counts in being a successful driver isn’t just your ability over a single lap to control your steering wheel, your throttle, and your brake. It goes beyond that.

“It has been in Formula 1 ever since I was a little kid.

“Secondly, the reason that the comment is a bit too premature is that we are still discussing which parts of certain management will be simplified for a driver, or made automated, or whatever, so they don’t have this over-complication.

“We don’t want drivers to have to have a PhD to drive the car.”

Acknowledging there is a certain level of “complication in the management” due to the increase of electrification relative to combustion power, Tombazis said a key goal for the FIA is to ensure natural driving characteristics for the new cars.

“The exercise now is to make sure that we don’t overburden the drivers with that, that the key driving skills have to remain the differentiating factors,” he said.

“Secondly, with the feedback of the teams from the simulators, that we eliminate any unnatural characteristics that make it look strange. These are the two core objectives.

“Any new regulation does need to have a bit less performance than the previous one. The cars naturally go faster year by year and, if the new regulations also made the cars go even faster, you can imagine where Formula 1 would be now.

“So it is natural that, if a driver gets out of one car and goes into a slightly slower car, he’s not going to say, ‘Wow, I’m really happy here’, in terms of comparison.

“While we’re getting closer to the season, running on the simulator with the cars close to the performance that they could have is quite recent. This process of refining the regulations is something that is still ongoing.

“So, the drivers sometimes have driven a particular condition, identified an issue in a particular way, which has now been resolved. So I think, on that basis, their comments are right in terms of factually right, but probably a bit premature, because you don’t take into consideration the final product.”

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