Oscar Piastri’s hilarious comment on 2026 F1 regulations has fans asking questions

Piastri’s comments about self-learning cars at Sepang have reignited debate over the complex systems behind Formula 1’s 2026 regulations

Sepang has returned to the Formula 1 calendar for the 2026 season after almost a decade's absence, and more than half of the grid has never turned a wheel in anger on the iconic circuit. Oscar Piastri is one of these drivers. But when talking about how long it would take him to learn, he made a comment about the current cars that many fans believe prove his distaste for the 2026 regulations.

Both he and his team-mate Lando Norris have relied on simulator work to learn the track before their arrival ahead of the race weekend.

"In terms of sim work, it's kind of the normal amount," the Australian confirmed on the Thursday ahead of the Bahrain Grand Prix. "I think for me, the sims, they help you identify your braking points, which gears you use roughly, how fast you can go, but when you really start getting into the finer details, especially with this year's cars and power units, it becomes very challenging.

"So it's not really a case of if you do double the amount of work on the sim and you get double the reward. There's definitely a point where it stops becoming useful."

In other word, there's a diminishing return on sim work. A driver can only simulate so much before real practice needs to take over.

Piastri's comment raises questions from fans

The driver was further asked how many laps it takes before he starts to feel at home on an unfamiliar track. Piastri answered with a detail that longtime F1 fans will appreciate. He referred to a famous press conference where drivers hilariously fought over how few laps it took for them to learn a track.

Nico Hukenberg was asked how many laps it takes for him to learn a lap at the 2016 European Grand Prix.

"At a guess after ten laps you have a really good idea of the track," he answered, before the question turned to Fernando Alonso.

"Two!" he answered, before Sebastian Vettel added: "I do it in one and a half!"

Several fans online also believe Piastri may have been referring to a separate press conference from the 2014 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, where journalist Walter Koster asked Sebastian Vettel and Nico Rosberg a famously long question based on an old comment from the late Niki Lauda that a monkey could drive a modern F1 car.

"I think it depends all on how the monkey grows up these days," Vettel answered after hilariously asking him to repeat his question.

"I think to be honest these cars need about 10 laps to learn where they're going," Piastri said. "So it will probably be the power unit that's trying to learn things after I am.

"But I think you're always learning a bit and every time the grip level changes, the fuel load changes, you're constantly learning. But I think probably, after the first run, you got a pretty good idea of where all the braking points are and then you're just evolving from there, so say four or five laps."

Oscar Piastri, McLaren

Photo by: Michael Potts / LAT images via Getty Images

When posted to Reddit, the comments section erupted into sarcasm. One commenter posted: "Incredible cars. In future decades the fia will declare the sport too dangerous and every driver will upload their personality into an AI system. Terminator Alonso will finally win his 3rd wdc."

Another added: "I do think it's an interesting analogy for AI fundamentally that it probably does lead to faster cars and progression full stop, but at the expense of predictability and transparency. The unknowable black box."

What are they talking about?

These 2026 regulation cars have an element of self-learning about them. It manages when the battery deploys and recharges, but it's not AI in the common sense of the term. It's algorithm-based, with the car adjusting to match inputs from the driver. This has been a sticking point for fans (and drivers). Piastri has previously said that grids can be decided by "computers behaving or misbehaving".