'This isn't F1' - Fans rage as drivers lose up to 100km/h at Japanese Grand Prix

Japanese Grand Prix

'This isn't F1' - Fans rage as drivers lose up to 100km/h at Japanese Grand Prix

Suzuka has further exposed the greatest weakness of the 2026 cars

Sheona Mountford F1 Journalist

Motorsport journalist working in F1 since 2024.

Friday 27 March 2026 21:53

The new F1 cars' trial by fire continued at the Japanese Grand Prix and did not end well as fans took to social media to complain about some serious lack of speed.

In an effort to conserve energy for deployment later on in the lap, F1 drivers have been taking corners a lot slower than what we have become accustomed to, with qualifying in particular losing that nail-biting edge where all 22 drivers go flat out.

One way to conserve energy is through 'super-clipping', where the cars can harvest energy while the driver is at full throttle, occurring at the end of straights and into high-speed corners. However, it comes at the cost of power to the rear wheels and as a result top speeds drop.

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But this loss of speed into the corners was particularly evident in Japan, where on Friday during free practice fans took to social media to share their outrage.

Suzuka is usually a smorgasbord of delights for F1 drivers, a rollercoaster ride at high-speed with twisty corners and the 130R left-hander, which follows a long drag from the Spoon Curve and is approached at close to 320 km/h.

However, during his long runs in practice, Franco Colapinto's speed dropped from 329 km/h to 231 km/h after 130R while at 100 per cent throttle, a difference of almost 100 km/h.

F1 fans fume, Albon bemoans lack of high speed

Similarly, onboard footage of Max Verstappen saw him go from 324 to 270kph, to which one fan wrote on X: "Going from 324 to 270km/h while at full throttle just isn’t F1. Something needs to be done asap to fix this because it’ll do more harm than good."

Another reviewed the same footage, and added: "Just watching the speed gradually drop from 324 to 268 through 130R is hurting my soul."

While another simply said: "I can't take you seriously if you're okay with this I'm sorry."

Another looked at the data from George Russell's Mercedes, and wrote: "60 km/h loss and a downshift at 130R for Russell at his fastest lap. Welcome to the pinnacle of motorsport."

It's not just fans who are in uproar, with Williams driver Alex Albon saying on the qualifying experience: "I think what I'm feeling so far this year is that there isn't really any high-speed anymore. Because you're arriving so slowly, basically everything is a medium speed corner now."

The speed loss of the 2026 cars is best exemplified by the F1 analytics account F1 Big Data, who complied the speed lost due to clipping during FP2 at Suzuka, where the average loss was 55km/h.

Driver	Team	Speed Lost (km/h)
HUL	Audi	46
BOR	Audi	51
BEA	Haas	52
LAW	RB	52
NOR	McLaren	52
BOT	Cadillac	52
VER	Red Bull	53
LEC	Ferrari	53
ANT	Mercedes	53
RUS	Mercedes	54
PER	Cadillac	54
PIA	McLaren	55
OCO	Haas	56
HAD	Red Bull	56
HAM	Ferrari	58
ALB	Williams	58
ALO	Aston Martin	60
SAI	Williams	61
GAS	Alpine	64
STR	Aston Martin	65
COL	Alpine	70

Written by

Sheona Mountford - F1 Journalist

Sheona Mountford is a motorsport journalist specialising in F1. As a writer and contributor, she covers a wide range of motorsport series from F1 to F1 Academy, responsible for breaking news, live race coverage and in depth analysis of the sport and the culture around it.

View full biography

F1 Japanese Grand Prix Suzuka