Alonso says 2026 F1 overtakes need 'no talent'

Fernando Alonso said Silverstone exposed what he sees as a fundamental problem with 2026 Formula 1, arguing that overtaking has become a battery-driven exercise in which drivers need “no talent” and can simply “press one button” to pass.

The Aston Martin driver said the current power-unit behavior has stripped risk and craft from wheel-to-wheel racing. He pointed to the 50:50 power output split, saying a driver who uses battery energy to attack can be left vulnerable on the next straight while the system recharges with 50% less power, turning that car into “a sitting duck” and making it difficult to defend.

Alonso told media including RacingNews365 that he watched part of the Silverstone Sprint and saw “people overtaking in the middle of the straight with more battery.” He said: “So there is not any driver input, or driver talent needed to overtake a car in front of you. You don't need to out-brake anyone, you don't need to overtake on the outside, you don't need to take any risk. You just need to press one button, and you will overtake if you have a better power unit.”

He used incidents from the British Grand Prix weekend to make his case. Alonso referenced Kimi Antonelli overtaking Lewis Hamilton on the Hangar Straight in the Sprint, and also a sequence involving Hamilton and George Russell. After Hamilton deployed his battery into Copse to pass around the outside, Alonso said he then had no battery through Maggots, Becketts and Chapel, allowing Russell to come back past on the run to Stowe.

Those comments came after a difficult race of Alonso’s own at Silverstone. His Aston Martin shut down on the formation lap before restarting, but the problem forced him to enter the pit lane and start from there under FIA rules. Alonso said the cause was still unknown after the race. “Everything suddenly went off, it went completely dark, and then it came back,” he said. Once the car restarted, “the rest of the race was fine.”

That left Alonso to spend much of Sunday circulating in a compromised race that ended in 18th place, with the focus shifted to gathering information for Aston Martin. He said it was “a race to collect data for the team” in the hope of finding something that could help development.

Even with the poor result, Alonso said Aston Martin remained “calm” about its development path and the upgrades expected over the coming rounds. He said the team is working toward improvements for the second half of the season, making Silverstone less significant for the finishing position than for what it revealed about both the car and the direction of racing under the 2026 rules.