Oscar Piastri makes 'like a passenger' point in F1 AI frustrations

Oscar Piastri believes F1 drivers are being left feeling "like passengers" as they continue to get to grips with the new AI energy deployment algorithms.

Drivers are not fully responsible for the deployment of their 350kw of electrical energy in 2026, with it being in the hands of AI algorithms which learn the track throughout the weekend, thus giving, in theory and on paper, the ideal deployment around a lap. 

At tracks such as Albert Park, Suzuka, Silverstone, and Spa, the energy demands have meant that drivers have been forced to save energy owing to the lack of heavy braking zones to harvest electrical power. 

Whereas circuits like the Hungaroring or Zandvoort have allowed drivers to attack in a vein similar to 2025, when the power output was around 80:20 in favour of the internal combustion engine over batteries, to the 50:50 of 2026.

Analysing the situation, Piastri felt the loss of control in managing energy deployment had left drivers, sometimes, feeling like "passengers" in the car.

"Sometimes, yes," Piastri replied when asked by media, including RacingNews365, if he "felt like a passenger of the AI systems" as it learns the track and deployment strategy. 

"At a track like Spa or a track like Silverstone, it’s going to be worse. At the Hungaroring or Zandvoort, I really don’t expect there to be many problems at all with that kind of thing, because the straights are so much shorter, so even if there are differences, they should be a lot less. 

"But the principle of driving a race car that loses effectively half of its power before the end of the straight is hard to get your head around sometimes. 

"Even in Spa, a lot of the middle sector we were doing it just on the combustion engine, with no battery assistance at all, which is a weird feeling in itself, having some corners with a certain amount of power and others with full power. 

"I think Spa was particularly frustrating, not just for me but for quite a lot of others, because those small differences in the code and what the engines did made quite a big difference in lap time. 

"Especially at the front of the field, I think there were still only nine hundredths or something separating four positions, and there were definitely more than nine hundredths on the table for quite a few drivers from things they could not control."