The Colombian and the hypocrisy on overtaking
“If someone likes this, then they don’t really know what motorsport is. This is not motorsport and the regulation is the worst ever. It has nothing to do with racing.” Max Verstappen continued to lash out at F1 2026 even at the end of the Chinese GP.
If after Australia a meeting – which would have been an emergency one – seemed to be on the agenda after the Shanghai weekend to immediately make corrections to the regulations, after what took place in China the FIA and FOM decided not to make hasty decisions, postponing any changes to the regulations to the long unexpected break in April.
If in China the issue of overtaking saw a clear improvement compared to Australia in terms of race dynamics, the crux of Qualifying and the ‘sadness’ of seeing cars not only plateauing but even losing momentum on the straight remains on the table. Regarding overtaking, however, the intervention of Juan Pablo Montoya in the podcast dedicated to him by the Colombian version of the Spanish publication AS.
“Overtaking was fake even with DRS, but no one talked about Mario Kart – Montoya’s thesis – just as a button was pressed to overtake in the last 15 years, at the same time now a button is pressed to have more energy and attack the driver ahead. The problem with F1 is at a communication level, because even with these rules, the attacking driver must be very good at preparing the overtake, executing it, and additionally defending the position gained from the rival’s counter-attack. This whole process remains an art. When Formula 1 understands how to manage all this and shows it better to the public, the problem will disappear.”
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