Early criticism of the new-for-2026 rules has forced F1 to act with sweeping changes to be introduced ahead of next week’s Miami Grand Prix.
The changes include limiting harvesting and increasing superclipping recharge in a bid to make qualifying more of a spectacle and driving challenge.
The superclipping recharge tweak will also be mandated in races to reduce lift-and-coast, while the maximum available power in boost mode has been limited to +150 kW to cap closing speeds between cars, a key safety concern from drivers.
Speaking to media overnight, McLaren star Piastri indicated he’s confident the rule tweaks will help, although admitted it will take a few more races to understand the full picture.
“I still need to go through all the details of all the rules, because I need someone smarter than me to explain what’s actually changed,” Piastri joked.
“But I think it’s a step in the right direction, for sure.
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“The changes to the boost button, I think, there will still be some quirks and situations that are a bit unexpected, but it’s generally in the right direction.
“The harvest limit becoming a bit lower and having more flexibility is in the right direction.
“I think we’ll have to wait and see across a few different tracks.
“We went to China and we didn’t really have that many of these problems.
“But then you go to somewhere like Australia or Japan, and we have a completely different set of problems, so it will still chop and change a bit from circuit to circuit.
“But I think on the whole, it is in the right direction. How far it goes in addressing the problems? We’ll have to wait and see [when] we get on track.”
Qualifying has been the primary victim of these news regulations, with consistency better rewarded than bravery under the first iteration of the rules due to the power deployment algorithm.
In fact, as explained by Piastri, mistakes have often seen a benefit in lap time, something he hopes will be stamped out by the harvesting limits now in place.
“I think every qualifying session so far, one of us has made a mistake somewhere and actually it’s helped us rather than hurt us, which is not how it should be,” Piastri said.
“You still have to drive the car in the limit, but just on the limit within a lot more kind of restrictions.
“Suzuka, we decided that the fastest way around the lap was to not get back on the throttle between the two Degners.
“But actually what it meant was you had to be probably even braver than normal on the way into the Degners, because you knew if you didn’t go hard enough into the corner, if you got back on the throttle afterwards it was going to be a penalty.
“Obviously we shouldn’t be having that debate in the first place. But ironically, it makes some places braver than they used to be before.
“Hopefully with these tweaks it’s a little bit more back to normal, and you’re not so restricted in the way you have to try and find lap time.”
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