Removing the electrical deployment restrictions from Formula 1’s 2026 power units could increase top speeds by 20 km/h, but a new simulation suggests the improvement in race performance would be surprisingly small. The findings highlight the difficulties behind the energy management rules criticised by Lewis Hamilton and Lando Norris following the Mexican Grand Prix, raising questions about whether greater freedom to deploy battery power would actually improve overtaking.
Engineer Marek Lubieniecki, a specialist in modelling and simulation, examined what would happen if the restrictions governing electrical power delivery at high speed were removed. His calculations produced a significant increase in straight-line performance, but also revealed the fundamental obstacle facing the current generation of Formula 1 cars: the available electrical energy remains limited, regardless of how much power the system can deliver.
2026 F1 power unit simulation reveals 20 km/h top-speed increase
The debate intensified during the Mexico City Grand Prix weekend, when Lando Norris criticised the progressive reduction in electrical power at high speeds, arguing that it was damaging the quality of racing. Lewis Hamilton expressed similarly strong dissatisfaction, describing the current engine management configuration as the worst he had experienced during his Formula 1 career.
One particular concern is the way electrical deployment gradually decreases as speed increases. Under the current regulations, the electrical contribution eventually reaches zero at 355 km/h, even when Overtake Mode is activated.
To investigate the effect of removing that restriction, Marek Lubieniecki simulated a lap of the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez and shared his findings on X.
The qualifying simulation produced an immediate improvement. Without the high-speed electrical cut-off, maximum speed increased from 350 km/h to 370 km/h, providing approximately three tenths of a second on the main straight alone.
However, achieving that additional performance required 0.76 megajoules more electrical energy. While the higher speed demonstrated what could be gained by extending deployment, the increased consumption created a separate challenge.
The results underline why Formula 1 power-unit performance and energy management have become important technical considerations for Ferrari and its rivals under the 2026 regulations.
Why removing F1’s electrical power limits barely improves race pace
The more revealing result emerged when the engineer examined race conditions rather than outright qualifying performance.
For this calculation, Marek Lubieniecki imposed a neutral energy balance, meaning that any additional electrical energy consumed during the lap had to be recovered. Under those conditions, the estimated lap-time improvement fell from three tenths on the main straight to just one tenth across the entire circuit.
The reason is straightforward. If a driver uses more electrical energy to maintain higher speeds along the straight, that energy must be saved or recovered elsewhere. The extra performance therefore comes at the expense of deployment in other parts of the lap.
Lubieniecki explained that the existing deployment curves largely determine where electrical energy is delivered at high speeds. Removing those limitations would give drivers and teams greater freedom to decide when to deploy power, but the car being overtaken would benefit from the same opportunity.
This creates an important distinction between increasing maximum speed and improving the ability to overtake. A car travelling faster in isolation does not necessarily gain an advantage over another car operating under identical regulations.
For readers interested in the recorded differences between cars rather than simulated values, the F1 top-speed comparison provides a way to examine straight-line performance across drivers and sessions.
Lewis Hamilton and Lando Norris face a deeper F1 overtaking problem
The simulation also suggests that removing deployment restrictions could introduce a different form of competition, with drivers concentrating even more heavily on managing their available battery energy.
According to Marek Lubieniecki, the success of an overtaking attempt would increasingly depend on which driver had preserved more electrical energy before reaching the straight. He therefore expects that greater freedom over deployment could encourage more competition based on energy conservation.
That outcome would not necessarily address the frustrations expressed by Lewis Hamilton and Lando Norris. Although removing the limitations could restore the higher maximum speeds traditionally associated with Formula 1, it would not automatically produce more passing opportunities.
Instead, drivers might spend considerable portions of a lap conserving energy before deploying as much as possible on the straights. The existing constraints would be replaced by greater tactical freedom, but the need to ration electrical energy would remain.
The difference matters because the challenge is not simply how quickly a car can travel when the battery is providing maximum assistance. It is also whether enough energy remains available to sustain that performance while competing against another driver.
MGU-K power and the underlying problem with the 2026 F1 regulations
The difficulties identified by the simulation extend beyond the rules governing deployment at high speed. They are closely connected to the fundamental architecture of Formula 1’s 2026 power units.
The removal of the MGU-H, combined with the considerably greater role assigned to electrical propulsion, has created a challenging energy balance. At many circuits, the cars cannot recover enough electrical energy to exploit the full potential of the 350 kW MGU-K throughout the lap.
On paper, the new power units offer substantial electrical output. In practice, that output must be distributed carefully because the amount of recoverable energy is insufficient to support unrestricted deployment.
Changing the deployment curves, removing high-speed cut-offs or allowing drivers to make more decisions about energy use could alter where the available power is delivered. None of those changes would automatically increase the total electrical energy available across a race lap.
Consequently, the trade-off highlighted by Marek Lubieniecki would remain: gaining speed on one section of the circuit could mean sacrificing performance somewhere else.
This raises a broader question about the philosophy behind the current regulations. If the electrical system is capable of producing 350 kW but cannot consistently be supplied with enough recovered energy to exploit that potential, adjustments to deployment rules alone may not resolve the underlying limitation.
The Mexico simulation demonstrates why the discussion surrounding the 2026 Formula 1 power units cannot be reduced to maximum speed or the removal of a single restriction. Greater deployment freedom could make the cars faster in certain situations, but the more fundamental challenge is the balance between electrical power, energy recovery and consumption.
For Ferrari and the rest of the grid, the central technical difficulty is therefore not simply unlocking more electrical power. It is finding a way to use the energy already available without losing an equivalent advantage elsewhere on the circuit.
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