F1 drivers air frustrations after 'speed limit' introduction

Arvid Lindblad and Gabriel Bortoleto have voiced frustration with the "speed limit" placed on F1 cars during the Sao Paulo Grand Prix.

For the new 2026 power unit regulations, the cars normally churn out 350kw of electrical energy, with this making up around 50% of the total power output. 

However, for safety reasons, in wet weather conditions, the output is capped at 250kw - a reduction of 100kw - to ensure drivers are able to keep the cars under control and not go spinning off. 

This means that whilst cars are able to drive freely in clean air, once they try to attempt to pass a rival, they can hit a block in terms of power as the cap is reached, and energy harvesting then begins. 

For Lindblad, who was trying to fight his way back into the points following his second change to slick soft tyres, this proved troublesome, as he came up behind the Alpine of Franco Colapinto whilst trying to battle Nico Hulkenberg's Audi for the final point in 10th - something the German ultimately hung on to - despite serving a 10-second time penalty.

"It was a hard fight, and I had a speed limiter with the energy," Lindblad said of his battle with Colapinto to media, including RacingNews365.

"So that was nice with the way it works.

"So I used the boost, and then he goes faster than me at the end of the straight, which is amazing, with the overtake mode."

Further discussing his race, the rookie then described how it had fallen apart in the closing laps as he tumbled from the points - having been running as high as eighth on Lap 45 before the second stop for a set of new softs put him behind Hulkenberg and Colapinto.

"It was a fun race, I enjoyed it a lot, especially if it ended on Lap 50 or 55, as we need to see what happened in the last 15, 20 laps as I don't think we managed everything perfectly," he said

"I obviously lost a lot of time with Franco, and I don't know if we could have made better decisions or if we were unlucky with the timing to go to the wet tyres - and unfortunately, I had big drivability problems in the last 10 laps, so it was incredibly difficult to race Nico.

"It was just about keeping the car on track, and it is a shame, because with 15 laps to go, in my head, we were going to be in the points - so I don't see where it went wrong."

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Bortoleto's point of view

As for Bortoleto, his weekend was all but over in qualifying after he spun off at Juncao in Q1 and made to start 19th, after penalties for Max Verstappen, Lewis Hamilton, and Sergio Perez.

He recovered to 16th place, albeit aided by the Did Not Start of Valtteri Bottas and Lance Stroll's retirement. 

The home driver spoke of how as soon as he escaped traffic, the "clean air" was not a problem with the 250kw limit. 

"I mean, I got stuck, and it was difficult to overtake because we're limited to 250kw on the straights," Bortoleto added.

"So it was difficult to make a really big gap, but as soon as I got clean air, I was very quick, but that doesn't matter at the end of the day, because you are starting from the back.

"So we are just saying what could have been, but it was not. The only thing I can do is learn from my mistake in qualifying and move to the next race."