Toto Wolff's verdict on the Miami Grand Prix was that anyone complaining about the racing should hide, because in his view it would be such an outrageous position to hold. The Mercedes team principal got the win and the title-chasing rookie. He could afford the line.
What the line cannot do is settle the underlying argument about the 2026 rules. Miami delivered a clean, watchable race. It also did so at exactly the kind of circuit on which the new regulations were always going to look their best, which means F1's most awkward conversation is still ahead.
The energy-rich nature of the Miami circuit — its stop-start layout — means there are plentiful opportunities to recharge the battery under conventional braking. Even with the more restrictive energy regeneration and deployment limits the FIA imposed in the surprise April rules tweak, Miami was always going to be relatively forgiving. The cars were being driven more normally there, with hardly any extreme lifting and coasting and almost none of the so-called super clipping where the MGU-K runs in reverse to charge the battery under full throttle.
That improved on-track behaviour was the headline that Wolff and the FIA wanted, and it is genuinely a step. It does not, however, change the architecture of the 2026 power unit. The cars still rely on a near 50/50 split of combustion and electrical power. F1's analysts have been blunt about the maths: at energy-poor circuits, that split simply cannot propel current cars around the lap efficiently enough.
That is why Canada matters more than Miami did. Montreal is fundamentally different — long straights, heavy braking zones that don't feed enough energy back into the system to support the deployment the rules want, and a layout that should expose any car (or any driver) struggling to manage clipping and coasting.
Monza, Las Vegas and the Red Bull Ring sit in the same energy-poor camp.
Max Verstappen is perhaps the most vocal critic of the regulations the sport has had so far. Miami's upgraded Red Bull made him noticeably happier in the cockpit. It did not change his view on the rules. He continues to believe the underlying concept of the 2026 power unit is wrong for the kind of racing F1 wants.
Carlos Sainz has been similarly forthright in public. He felt things were a bit better in Miami, but his criticism has consistently been about the energy management element of modern racing, not just one-off symptoms at one race. His prediction is that the next group of circuits will surface the same complaints all over again.
The context here matters. The FIA's April adjustments — more power per super-clip use, a maximum recharge limit reduced from 8 to 7 megajoules, a less powerful boost mode and tighter wet-weather safety provisions — were emergency tweaks, not a redesign. They softened the worst symptoms. They did not change the fundamentals of how the new power units have to be deployed lap to lap.
That is why Canada is the more important data point. Mercedes will arrive there with its first proper upgrade of 2026. McLaren, Ferrari and Red Bull will have had two more weeks to digest what Miami exposed. And the circuit itself will tell the FIA, and the rest of the paddock, whether the new rules are actually fixed or simply quieter when the geography is friendly.
Miami was the best case. The hard cases start now.
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*Originally published on [News Formula 1](https://newsformula.one/article/canada-2026-f1-test-energy-poor-circuits-miami-best-case-verstappen-sainz). Visit for full coverage.*
