Tiff Needell has spent extra of his life inside than the general public presently working the game have spent fascinated with it. So when the previous F1 driver and presenter takes a swing at F1’s CEO on X, it’s value a couple of minutes of consideration.
The swing got here in response to a graphic from The Race by which journalist Jon Noble steered followers had fallen in love with F1 due to its velocity, and Domenicali pushed again on the concept that the game’s id rests on having the quickest automobiles and finest . Needell quote-posted it with this:
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That’s the entire submit. It’s additionally one of many extra pointed issues a former grand prix driver has stated about F1’s CEO in public.
— Tiff Needell
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Associated ArticlesWhy This One Hurts Extra Than the Typical Fan Grumbling
Needell isn’t a man with a Sky subscription and an opinion. He began 54 grands prix within the early Nineteen Eighties, drove for Ensign and Tyrrell, and has spent the 4 many years since then round racing automobiles in a single type or one other. When he says the CEO doesn’t respect long-term followers, it lands in a different way than the identical criticism from a r/formula1 thread.
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It additionally comes on the worst second, as a result of the 2026 rules are precisely the factor the long-term crowd has been bracing for.
The brand new guidelines, which started this season, essentially change what a Method 1 automobile is. The ability unit splits roughly 50/50 between the inner combustion engine and the motor, with the MGU-Ok’s output tripling from 120 kW to 350 kW.
The MGU-H, which recovered power from exhaust gases and was one of many extra intelligent bits of the earlier formulation, is gone. The automobiles run on 100% sustainable gas. They’re narrower, shorter, and lighter on paper, with lively aerodynamics changing DRS, flaps on each the entrance and rear wings that open on the straights and shut within the corners.
The that has followers like Needell rolling their eyes is the enhance mode and the final approach by which these machines harvest their energy.
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As a result of the can’t maintain full electrical deployment for a whole lap at high-power circuits, drivers must handle power actively, lifting and coasting on straights to ensure they’ve deployment accessible the place it issues.
At locations like Monza, automobiles could possibly be working out of electrical energy nicely earlier than the braking zone, with the combustion engine primarily dragging the automobile to the nook.
That’s the bit the purists can’t get previous. A sport whose id was constructed on going as quick as doable for so long as doable is now a sport the place the motive force is rationing electrons and hoping the software program will get the technique proper.
The replies beneath Needell’s submit affirm this, with one saying: “battery tremendous clipping push to move” and one other describing it as “dumb laptop sport garbage.”
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Domenicali’s argument, broadly, is that F1 is larger than any single technical formulation and that the game’s development beneath Liberty Media proves the viewers cares about greater than lap instances.
He’s not unsuitable in regards to the development.
, the US races, the demographic transfer towards youthful and extra feminine viewers – that’s all actual and it’s all on his watch. However telling the individuals who watched Senna at Donington that their definition of the game is outdated is a daring transfer, and Needell was clearly grated by this.
The CEO is basically asking the unique viewers to be quiet whereas he sells their sport to a brand new one.
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Whether or not 2026 truly performs out as badly because the doom-posters suppose is genuinely unknown. there have already been adjustments made to the regs, so we’ll control how that adjustments racing.
However the belief between F1’s management and its long-term fanbase is clearly working on fumes, and a former grand prix driver calling the CEO a smiling murderer in public is the form of factor that tends to occur proper earlier than a sport has to begin listening once more.
