Oscar Piastri walked into Miami on Thursday with one clear expectation: the new power-unit changes coming into force this weekend should put more control back in the drivers' hands as the Formula 1 season resumes after a five-week break.
The rule adjustments, applied for the Miami Grand Prix — the fourth grand prix of the year — were designed to blunt some of the quirks that followed the new engine regulations earlier in the season. They aim to restore the feel of driving in qualifying to a more conventional and natural on-the-limit one, reduce the need for lift and coast in qualifying, and cut the time the engine spends charging the electrical motor at full throttle — a practice known as super-clipping.
For proof of why the changes matter, look at the numbers and the commentary coming into the weekend. Going into the race, Mercedes' 19-year-old Italian Kimi Antonelli leads the drivers' championship from team-mate George Russell, and teams have been wrestling with how altered power delivery and energy deployment have reshaped lap-running and overtaking. One senior figure said the changes go about 20% of the way toward restoring traditional F1 driving, and Oscar Piastri warned that the tweaks would be felt in the cockpit: "The changes to the boost button especially and then some of the way the power comes in should make things a bit more in our control and also a bit more sensible."
Last week Laurent Mekies offered a cautious endorsement. "It's a good step forward. It's going in the right direction," he said, acknowledging the regulatory fixes but also signalling their limits. Mekies and Andrea Stella both say a further, hardware change is needed to go the full distance — specifically an adjustment to the fuel-flow rate of the internal combustion engine. That modification would move the current roughly 50-50 energy split closer to about 60-40, shifting more emphasis back to the internal-combustion side of the power unit.
Context matters: these rule changes were introduced in response to criticism after the first three races. Engineers and drivers raised flags about excessive closing speeds when one car deploys full energy and another is charging its battery, the odd handling balance in qualifying stints, and super-clipping producing strange top-speed patterns. The Miami changes are the sport's immediate answer — regulatory, rather than mechanical — and they are explicitly intended to reduce those undesirable side effects.
That answer is partial by design. The tweaks are expected to reduce the tell-tale speed drop-off towards the end of straights for the fans in the grandstands and on TV, but that drop-off will still be present. Teams and drivers were told the new style of racing, where overtaking happens more often and cars can swap position for several laps, is intended to continue. In short: closer, more entertaining racing without entirely losing the traditional sensory cues of pushing a Formula 1 car to its limits.
The tension is straightforward. Regulators can change software parameters and boost-button behaviour for a single race weekend; they cannot alter the internal plumbing of the power unit without a hardware mandate. Mekies and Stella argue that only a fuel-flow change will complete the task. That would be a more intrusive fix, technically and politically, and it would fundamentally shift how teams design and race their cars by changing the balance of energy sources from roughly 50-50 to about 60-40.
The Miami Grand Prix will therefore be a test not just of the new rules but of how much change the paddock will accept short of a hardware overhaul. If qualifying feels more natural and super-clipping subsides, the regulators will claim progress. If drivers still have to manage odd energy behaviours, calls for the deeper fuel-flow adjustment will get louder. For Piastri and his peers, the practical judgment is simple: these Engine changes should make life a bit more sensible in the cockpit, but only a hardware fix will finish the job.
