Fri Fix: F1's new era throws competition wide open

0:00ABC Listen, podcasts, radio, news, music, and more. What would it mean to finally win at home? I tell you what, if I had a dollar for every time I got asked that, I'd be... a few dollars richer. Oscar Piastry laughing off the weight of expectation coming into a new season with new regulations on his home deck. How will McLaren handle papaya rules between Piastry and world drivers champion Lando Norris in season 2026? Will we see Lewis Hamilton return to his best with Ferrari and with a brand new team joining the F1 grid? Will two extra cars mean more carnage? The only thing we know about this season is that there are plenty of unknowns. Plus, the Paralympic Winter Games get underway this weekend and we give you the ones to watch. I'm Poppy Penny and this is ABC Sport Daily. Mick Doyle is covering the F1 from Albert Park this weekend for the ABC.

1:03Mick, New Year, New Me, or in the case of F1, entirely new cars. Pretty much everything has changed on these cars in the off season. What do those changes look like broadly? What are we looking out for? So, we're in the first year of a new era of regulations. So, Formula One will change up essentially the guidelines of how you build your car or your engine periodically to keep the sport revitalised. This year we have new chassis and engine or power unit regulations. So, the cars of now compared to the cars that we saw just three months ago finish the 2025 season are completely different. On the outside, they are narrower, they are slightly shorter, they're lighter, and they have a lot less downforce, which makes them harder to corner for the drivers. As far as the engine goes, they're more simplified and they've got a lot more electrical power. So, last year, the power unit would generate about 120 kilowatts of power. Now it's up to as much as 350.

2:05Arguably, it is the biggest overhaul F1's ever done. From what we've seen in testing, who is handling those changes the best? It is hard to get a read. In previous new era regulations, there's always been one team that stood out. This year not as much, but if there had to be a best guess, it would be Mercedes. They got a lot of laps in from the two testing sessions in Bahrain and the unofficial week in Barcelona, and their car appears to be quite reliable, which is very important at this time yet. Almost more important than lap time. Reliability is a real key. McLaren still look like they're going to be near the front of the grid, Ferrari and Red Bull as well. The flip side of that is Aston Martin. There are reports that say that their drivers are risking permanent nerve damage if they spend too long in their cars. Have they really turned up in Australia at the season opener with a car that cannot finish the race? It appears that they have, and this is remarkable.

3:05Adrian Nui, the team principal, came out on Thursday. Fernando is of the feeling that he can't do more than 25 laps consecutively before he will risk permanent nerve damage to his hands. Lances with the opinion that he can't do more than 15 laps before lap threshold. And the issue appears to be with their Honda engine, more specifically the battery, where it would appear that the vibrations are so forceful that they're coming through the chassis and through the steering wheel, and it doesn't just make the car near impossible to drive, it makes it apparently very dangerous to drive. If they can't do more than 25 laps in a row, well, that's not even half race distance of the Australian Grand Prix. So there are real fears that they might just have to start the race, do a few laps, and then park the car. It's staggering. And this isn't just a problem for this weekend. The next race is the following weekend in China, and then two weeks later we're in Japan. If they can't sort it out now, like how long and how much work do they need to do,

4:10to be able to make the car drivable for a Grand Prix distance. And as every day goes by, they are losing so much ground in data and understanding of the car to their other rivals. There are real issues at Aston Martin, and they could be a huge deficit when it comes to just data and understanding of their car. We also see an entirely new team join the grid this year in Cadillac, which means we go from 20 to 22 cars on the grid. Do you think we'll see more car niche as drivers are just a sort of, I guess, extra traffic? There is the ability to have more carnage. It's fantastic that there's an 11th team, and to have a big player like Cadillac under the umbrella of General Motors come into the sport is magnificent. It should do a lot of good for the push into the United States and North America that Formula One really has attacked over the last few years. And we also get to see Valtteri Bottas and Sergio Perez back on the grid who are two

5:11fan favourites, Grand Prix winners, excellent drivers. I'm looking forward to seeing how they progress because they're going to be near the rear of the grid, and that's okay for now. Fan favourite, Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari were the story for all the wrong reasons last year. They couldn't make up work. He failed to finish on a Grand Prix podium, did Winner Sprint race? Do you feel as though they've maybe mended some of those bridges and we might see the old Lewis Hamilton back? Lewis came in at an interesting time last year because it was the final year of the previous era of regulations. So there was only so much changing to the car that they were going to do. The hope is that all the benefit of having a seven-time world champion with Ferrari should blossom this year because they've had all of last year to work together, understand each other. There have been hiccups. I want to happen with the show this day. How did I end up? He tapped. That's all we all looking good at well put. But now that they've got brand new car, clean slate, it would be wonderful to see

6:15the Lewis of seven years ago be able to re-emerge and fight for Grand Prix wins because he's obviously a legend of the sport, but when you see a great comeback to the field a little bit, you find yourself cheering for him again. The old timer just one more round, one more win, one more podium. If you did it in Melbourne in front of these, loyal Ferrari fans, I know we love Papyran, Australians love Piaestry, but Melbourne is a Ferrari town. You mentioned Papyran. A couple of years ago I'd have said Papyran rules is just someone who's a huge fan of the fruit. I now know that it defines the competition between the two McLaren drivers, one of whom is of course our drivers champion and the other our very own Oscar Piaestry. Will we see those same papyran rules in 2026? I don't think McLaren will deviate from what they did last year. They opened the door for both drivers to fight each other on track. There were a couple of times where team orders were called. There is no reason for McLaren to change what they've done. It's worked up until now.

7:27They got a driver's championship and a constructor's championship out of it in 2025. While Piaestry was on the wrong end of that title battle last year, he was given, in my view, every opportunity, just like Lando Norris was, to win the world title and it just so happened that Norris was a little more consistent, had a few more podium finishes than Oscar, which decided the world championship. There's no reason for McLaren to change and I don't think they're going to. No Australian has won the Grand Prix since it moved to Melbourne and 1980 was the last time a local took out the title down under. Does Piaestry have the car and the skill to make 2026 the year that changes? Theoretically he does. There's so much unknown when you're in the first race of a new era of regulations. The only certainty is uncertainty. That's what makes this weekend so intriguing. Does he have the talent to win? Absolutely. We've seen him do it nine times in Grand Prix. We saw him come very, very close to becoming a world champion. He's now in his fourth

8:28year. The consensus is that he's still got improvement to come and McLaren should still be there or thereabouts near the front of the grid. So the ingredients theoretically are there for Oscar to win and become the first Australian to win his home Grand Prix. Not since 1980 since it became a Formula One event. When Alan Jones won a 1980, it was not a Formula One event. There's a lot of hope for Oscar, but there's also a lot of hope for Lando, Norris as well, and Max Verstappen Red Bull and Charlsel Clark and Lewis Hamilton of Ferrari and the two Mercedes. It's what makes this weekend really exciting. Very quickly. Do you think Oscar can win the whole thing? Could you bring the title back down under? Theoretically absolutely. He has the talent to win and he's part of a team that has approved him winner in recent times. But McLaren aren't as far ahead as they were this time last year. We expect the Mercedes to be really good. The hope is Ferrari going to be really good. Red Bull are there or thereabouts and they've got Max Verstappen who's one of the greatest drivers to walk the face of the earth. So it's a very open season as we

9:30are about to dawn on it. Mick Doyle, enjoy the chaos this weekend. Thanks so much for your time. Thanks Poppy. Liz Wright is a three-time Paralympic medalist and luckily for us she's now a member of the ABC sport team. Liz, the Paralympic Winter Games is about to get underway from an Australian perspective. Who are we looking out for in this team? Look, I can't believe we're at the Winter Paralympics already and I'm so excited. We have one of the biggest and strongest teams that Australia has ever sent to a Winter Games. And when I've looked over the team, the ones that I'm really kind of keeping an eye on over the next week and a half or so is definitely one of our veterans Ben Todd Hope. He is competing in his fourth Paralympic Games. He made his debut in 2014. But he's had just a brilliant run-up to the Winter Games actually claiming his 50th World Cup Circuit podium finish. So I think he's definitely in with a chance for a medal. We also have

10:31Snowboarder Amanda Reed who has made the switch from the Summer Paralympics over to the Winter Games. She won gold in cycling in the Paris Games only two years ago but she's really showing her versatility in the lead up to these Winter Games winning a gold medal in the 2023 World Parasnow Board Championship. So she's definitely up there with a chance to medal. And of course, we have several others in the Alpine skiing Dave Mellon who is up there possibly mentally. He has claimed a silver in the Parablython at the Invictus Games. So I think he's in there with a chance. So we've got a few. We've got a few poppy. And internationally, who are some of the stories that have caught your eye to be looking out for from a not-Australian perspective? Yeah, there are some absolutely amazing superstars in Winter Paralympics that, you know, just blow my mind with their skill and what they could possibly do at these Winter Games. So

11:34from the United States, we have Oxana Masters who is just one of those athletes who is good at everything. So a little bit like our own Amanda Reed, Oxana has come across from the Summer Games. She has claimed 19 medals across both Summer and Winter Paralympics. She's just phenomenal. So in terms of the Parablython in Cross Country, she will be the one to beat at these games. We also have Paris Snowboarder Tyler Turner from Canada who has just been explosive across Paris Snowboarding in the past few years. He's, I think, definitely going to be the one who will dominate in the Snowboard in Milano, Cortina. And he's definitely the one to keep it on. He is the same classification as our own Ben Tutto. So Tyler will be the one that Ben has to beat. Liz, I can't wait for these games. I feel like it's just never ending the winter sport and I'm quite happy for it to never end. Liz, right. Thank you so much for your time. We really appreciate it.

12:36Thanks, Poppy. Thank you so much. I'm so excited for these games. Sound bites. Alisa Healey's incredible international career is set to come to an end in a test match in Perth against India that starts today. It's an emotional time for cricket fans, but how she handling it. I genuinely don't think there'll be any sadness and that's not anything to do with cricket. I'm just really excited for, you know, life after cricket and I'm really grateful for the experience that I've had so far. And yeah, I've just sort of really enjoyed the last sort of 20 years of cricket and we'll wait and see what I'm following next, which is more excitement than anything else. She had the fairy tale finish in the ODIs and you can listen to her final match on ABC, Listen, Live and Add Free. The AFL returned last night and the swans had a 63 point win over the Blues. But for their skipper, Callum Mills, there was more on his mind than Just Foodie. My wife's due tomorrow. We've had a few scares and we thought it was going to come last night, but she held on, so I'm not sure how she's doing. I said to the club, let me know if she went into labor at the game,

13:40so I haven't heard, so I don't think she's in labor, which is good. Good luck to the expectant parents. And at the start of a brand new season, it's important to make sure your fans still have hope for the year to come. Unfortunately, no one told that to set George Illa Warras coach Shane Flanagan. We probably know that we're not going to win the comp this year, but we, you know, we're in Devazada, we're in a lot of football games. I mean, I guess there's always next year for Dragon's fans. I'm Poppy Penny and this is ABC Sport Daily. Thanks to Formula 1 and Channel 9 for the extra audio used in this episode. Discover more great ABC podcasts, live radio and exclusives on the ABC Listen app.