Juan Pablo Montoya suggests 20% energy cut to improve F1 but warns of unintended consequences. Juan Pablo Montoya shares his view on how reducing energy deployment in F1 could improve safety and racing.

Advice for the FIA

Juan Pablo Montoya is undoubtedly one of the drivers who best embodies the no-frills Formula 1 of the early 2000s. Yet, the former Williams and McLaren driver has not hidden a certain appreciation for the new regulations that have sparked so much debate among fans and current drivers. In an interview given to the Casinostugan portal, the Colombian explained how, in fact, some adjustments to energy management could benefit the on-track spectacle, provided that the FIA is careful not to overdo it and risk recreating the dull “DRS trains” that were often seen with the previous generation of cars.

F1, Juan Pablo Montoya’s opinion

“I don’t think that in five weeks,” Juancho explained, “they will be able to fix something they have been working on for the last four years. The only possible solution, if this is a safety issue, is to limit the amount of energy distributed across the various sectors. At that point, the rules would be the same for everyone. If they want to make changes, they could remove some power to slightly extend battery life and reduce lift and coast. If they took away around 20% of the electric motor’s power, you could use more energy for overtaking mode, and that might not be a bad idea. If the amount of energy and how it is used on other straights were limited, then the safety issue linked to speed differences would disappear. But there needs to be uniformity.”

“The reality is,” he added, “that right now every team deploys power in a different way and believes theirs is the best approach. Look at Ferrari in the first sector at Suzuka and how incredibly fast they were, and the same in the middle sector, but then in the third it seemed that Mercedes had done a much better job because they were not draining the battery too much at the start of the lap. This makes a huge difference at the end. So, if you define where energy can be deployed and how much can be used in each sector, then you force drivers into a more conventional race.”

Watch out for the drawbacks

Juan Pablo Montoya, however, warns Formula 1 about the risk of overreacting in a way that could ultimately prove harmful: “If the FIA solves the safety problem, we could see the return of DRS trains and end up with races without overtaking. And then people will complain that F1 is boring. The truth is there is no perfect answer, because they moved away from last year’s rules as they were considered inadequate, with teams and drivers complaining about how terrible ground effect was, how difficult it was to follow the car ahead, and the amount of porpoising. And now what? Everyone says we should go back? That’s the issue — too many voices are being listened to.”

“We need to be very careful. They could end up shooting themselves in the foot while trying to make Formula 1 races safer for the drivers,” Juan Pablo Montoya concluded.