Sky F1’s Martin Brundle has raised a provocative question at the heart of Formula 1’s new era: are the sport’s new-generation cars quietly breaching one of its oldest rules?
Three races into 2026, what began as murmurs of driver frustration has evolved into something far more serious — a suggestion that the balance between human control and machine automation may have tipped too far.
And if Brundle is right, the implications may go beyond racing quality and straight into regulatory territory.
The autonomy paradox
The friction reached a breaking point at the Japanese Grand Prix, where a series of "accidental" overtakes left competitors frustrated rather than jubilant.
McLaren’s Lando Norris found himself an unwilling protagonist in this trend during a late-race skirmish with Lewis Hamilton. The sheer lack of driver agency in the cockpit has become impossible to ignore.
“I didn’t even want to overtake Lewis, it’s just about when the battery deploys, and I don’t want it to deploy, but I can’t control it," Norris admitted following the race. "So I overtake him, and then I have no battery, so he just flies past.”
This loss of control is not merely a strategic headache; it is a safety concern. In high-speed sections like Suzuka’s 130R, the software’s insistence on dumping power regardless of the driver's intent creates dangerous closing speeds and unpredictable handling.
“The problem is, it deploys into 130R," the reigning world champion continued. "I have to lift, otherwise I'll drive into him, and I'm not allowed to go back on throttle.
“If I go on throttle, my battery deploys, and I don't want it to deploy because it should have cut. But because you lift and you have to go back on, it redeploys. There's nothing I can do about it.”
For Brundle, that last comment is the alarm bell.
A regulatory transgression?
Speaking on The F1 Show, Brundle believes the issue transcends awkward racing – it strikes at the heart of the FIA’s own rulebook.
Article 27.1 of the sporting regulations famously dictates that a driver must navigate their vehicle independently, yet the current power units seem to be overriding human input.
“I think the problem the drivers have got; one thing that really worried me was Lando Norris saying ‘I didn’t want to overtake Lewis Hamilton, but my battery decided it did, and then I had nothing to defend with’,” he noted.
The former Grand Prix driver argued that the current software-driven deployment strategies may be violating a rule that is as old as the championship itself.
“Now, there’s a regulation in Formula 1, it’s been around for forever, it’s very simple and far-reaching. The driver must drive the car alone and unaided,” Brundle asserted.
The implications are severe. If the car is making decisions on energy release that the driver is actively trying to prevent, the "unaided" element of the sport vanishes.
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“The drivers shouldn’t have any surprises by a self-learning car," Brundle continued. "They’ve got to get rid of that. I’m sure it’s not the work of a moment, but the power delivery must be proportional to what the drivers are doing with the throttle.
“That’s the fundamental. It has to be linear. It’s a big issue for the FIA.”
The pressure on the governing body to re-establish the link between the driver's right foot and the car's acceleration has never been higher.
Until the power delivery is returned to the hands of the athletes, F1 risks being less of a sport and more of a software lottery.
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