Why Monza turned F1 2026 into an oval-style slipstream race: the yo-yo phenomenon and Antonelli's comeback

Monza, September 2026. On the endless straights of motor racing's temple of speed, more than twenty Formula 1 cars formed a train without a head. The leader pushed, but a few hundred metres later, the one dropped behind would use the slipstream to fight back. Overtake. Be overtaken. Again and again, for 53 laps, as if someone were playing yo-yo with thousand-horsepower machines. Standing in the main grandstand, I could not help thinking of the afternoons spent watching relay runners in Berlin: if a team cannot hand the baton in rhythm, they become stuck together, unable to break away. The oval and the road course are not opposites; they are two beats of the same heart, and Monza exposed that heart in a way nobody expected. Formula 1's 2026 regulations are living through a new era: bigger batteries, more powerful electric overtaking modes, and a harsher reliance on slipstream. The phrase 'yo-yo racing' appeared in the early races of the season, but it reached an extreme at the Italian Grand Prix. Monza has the three longest straights on the calendar, places where drafting becomes a devastating weapon. Combined with the energy rules, drivers can easily overtake, but cannot maintain the lead because the battery is depleted after the initial surge. The result is a sequence of passes that leaves no one truly in control. Max Verstappen suffered from this paradox more clearly than anyone. His Red Bull lacked the engine performance to challenge Mercedes on the straights. Yet thanks to the huge slipstream effect and the 2026 energy rules, he could stick behind George Russell for a long time. He could not complete a pass, and when he did, he became a sitting duck for Russell to use his own boost to retake the position. Verstappen said: 'To be honest, I did not enjoy it a lot when people just drive by you like you are a turtle. With the overtake mode it looked quite promising, but as soon as I got in the lead, it was very hard to defend. Even when we had the VSC, we boxed, had better tyres, I am overtaking cars, but as soon as they can hang in that overtake mode, it is just too powerful for us to defend.' The issue was not limited to the front pair. Oscar Piastri and Lewis Hamilton, who lost touch before the mid-race virtual safety car, formed their own pocket of cars. Lando Norris and Pierre Gasly also followed suit. For long stretches, Monza looked like an oval race at Indianapolis rather than a traditional road course. On an oval, drivers co-operate, trading positions to save fuel and maximise the draft. On a twisting Grand Prix circuit, that is close to impossible. Russell and Verstappen cost each other enough time to allow a charging Kimi Antonelli to climb through the field. McLaren team principal Andrea Stella said: 'Somehow with these regulations, it is not easy to get an overtake completed and move on. If you see how much it took for Lando to pass Gasly and then start to close the gap to the cars ahead, we see that there has been a lot of entertainment, but to some extent there are also issues for a quicker car to compete if you do not start at the front.' Ferrari boss Fred Vasseur added: 'The race pace was okay-ish. The main issue was top speed and overtaking. It was quite impossible for us to attack or to defend. When we were attacking someone, we were draining the battery, and next straight line we were losing the position.' Stella described the Italian Grand Prix weekend as one of the busiest of the year for his crew as they tried to optimise strategy and set-up for this style of racing. 'Very, very busy for everyone, drivers and engineers, managing the power unit and the battery on a circuit like Monza. This becomes the dominating element. We see that, jointly with the slipstream, a faster car can struggle to pull away from a slower car. This can make a difference of half a second per lap, the combination of slipstream and the need to use boost to defend, causing you to lose pace.' Half a second per lap is huge at Monza, where a tenth can decide pole position. Normally a car that is half a second faster can easily pull away within a few laps. But under yo-yo racing, that advantage is wiped out by the dirty air from the car ahead. The closer you get, the more downforce you lose, the more energy you must use, and when you finally get past, you have no energy left to make the gap stick. Only one driver broke that pattern: Kimi Antonelli. The 20-year-old Italian started 19th, yet with a determined, calculated drive he sliced through the field and won. While others were trapped in packs, Antonelli was the only one who could move from group to group. He did pass cars that were theoretically faster, and he did it with precise car placement while always balancing his energy. Mercedes clearly had an advantage in energy deployment, but that is not enough to explain the win. George Russell, his team-mate, could not break away from Verstappen with the same machinery. Antonelli showed not only brave overtaking but also the racecraft to make every move stick. Team principal Toto Wolff said: 'The differentiator today was the ability to go through the traffic. We have seen it with the great ones in the past. Lewis did it at some races, and that is what Kimi has shown today. There is just no stopping him. When a driver and a car are one, there is nothing that can stop them.' Yet, as a journalist who has covered many eras of motorsport, I have to ask: what does yo-yo racing actually bring to F1? On the surface, it provides constant action, overtakes every lap, which any fan would enjoy. But beneath that entertainment hides an uncomfortable truth: the fastest cars cannot express their potential. This is the contrarian view. Most spectators believe that a race with many overtakes is a good race. But in my data-driven view, yo-yo racing is a form of athletic pollution. It creates a false sense of competitiveness while punishing true excellence. A top team's car can be held up by a midfield car because of the tow. The energy system has created a form of forced mediocrity. In more than two decades of watching sports, I have learned that the greatest failure is learning to read the contest before it begins. In 2026, engineers must read the race differently. They must manage energy and find ways to escape the pack. At Monza, Antonelli did exactly that. He read the race before it began, which is what separates champions from the rest. But if we look at the wider picture, Monza 2026 will be remembered as a demonstration of a structural problem in modern F1. Cars can become so dependent on energy that pure driving skill becomes blurred. The gap between a fast and a slow car is being artificially closed by regulations. I do not believe in luck; I believe in numbers lined up and waiting to be read. The numbers from Monza suggest that if a car is half a second per lap quicker but cannot pull away, then either the driver is misusing their energy, or the regulation is creating a systemic problem. With Spa and Las Vegas also having long straights, this yo-yo script will return. The real question is not whether Antonelli deserved his victory, but whether F1 can survive as a sport where the fastest car often cannot win. A race in which a champion like Verstappen feels like a turtle is not a celebration of speed. It is a warning that formula racing may be losing its identity. I do not have an easy answer. But I do know that, from defeats at Luzhniki to empty standiums during the pandemic, sport always finds a way to expose its own paradoxes. Monza 2026 was one of the greatest paradoxes of the new era: a spectacular, exciting race that may be telling us that the price of absolute fairness is mediocrity.