F1 ‘vehemently denies’ censoring Belgian Grand Prix onboards to hide flaw in regulations

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Max Verstappen says F1 drivers only have access to ‘Formula 3’ levels of power through certain sections of the Spa circuit.

As predicted, the Belgian Grand Prix is proving to be one of the toughest races of the year for energy management. Drivers are downshifting before the braking zones for Les Combes and the Bus Stop chicane because they’re running out of battery power.

“For most of sector two, you run just on the engine, so what is that? 450, 500 horsepower, something like that, which is, I guess, more or less what a Formula 3 car has, but with F1 downforce,” Verstappen said. “So, you can imagine, of course, that that is not very exciting to drive.”

F1’s emphatic response to Timo Glock ‘transparency’ criticism

During the final practice at Spa, Sky Sports Germany commentator Timo Glock accused F1’s broadcast team of hiding the extent of the issue. They cut away from Kimi Antonelli’s onboard camera after Eau Rouge, which meant viewers couldn’t hear the ‘superclipping’ kicking in before Les Combes.

“They don’t want to show the drop in speed,” Glock said. “They could be much more transparent about it. But that’s not our decision.”

Auto Motor und Sport contacted F1 for their response. A spokesperson for the sport ‘vehemently denied’ that there was a ‘political agenda’ behind the directorial decisions and didn’t understand why Glock would make such an accusation.

Broadcasters have access to onboards, which they typically use for analysis, while viewers can also watch them through subscription packages. But clearly, most of the attention is on the world feed.

• READ MORE: Lance Stroll was literally as slow as a GT3 car thanks to super clipping at the Belgian Grand Prix

This isn’t the first time F1 has faced such accusations. The sport’s official X account hid replies criticising the product after the debut for the new regulations in Australia.

At the Chinese GP a week later, fans claimed F1 was using a ‘frozen speedometer’ to conceal the loss of power on the straights.

Onboard footage of Antonelli’s pole lap at Suzuka cut away when he ran out of energy, though F1 put this down to a camera outage.

The regulations have been refined by various tweaks, but there are still numerous circuits where the drivers are unable to push flat-out for the entirety of a qualifying lap.