Charles Leclerc has raised concerns over racing in forecast heavy rain at the Miami Grand Prix with the current Formula 1 cars forcing drivers to act in "counterintuitive" ways.

F1 returns to action this weekend in Miami, but there is already a thunderous cloud looming on the horizon, with storms expected to strike on Sunday.

In the five-week break since the Japanese Grand Prix, a number of changes to the regulations were approved, with wet running one aspect looked into. In order to limit closing speeds, the boost button - an overtaking or defensive aid in dry weather - will be disabled, denying drivers up to an extra 350kw of electrical power. 

However, pre-programmed electrical deployment modes will remain in place, meaning that there could still be a significant speed discrepancy in certain areas of the track, based on how teams have elected to unlock pace.  

Highlighting the potential for a significant problem, Leclerc warned: "You can find yourself in tricky situations, especially if drivers are driving with different power unit strategies.

“You have got very little visibility, so that is a tricky aspect of these rules, and something we need to understand a way out of. Because in the wet, you are really passengers. In the rain, it is not about being brave or not; it is just you stay flat out and you hope that no cars in front of you are slower than you, and you just assume they are at the same speed as you.

“That was easy to assume in past years. Now, it is not the case anymore, so we will go flat out and see how it goes. So it is not such a nice feeling. This is something we need to still work on.”

Further to this issue, is the fact that drivers may find themselves travelling at greater speeds on the straights - such as the long drag to the tight Turn 17 - due to a reduced need to harvest energy, and less superclipping through the increased time taken to reach full throttle.

Having experienced 2026 machinery in the wet during a pre-season shakedown, Leclerc explained: “Well, you have a lot of electrical power, and I think the weird thing about these cars in the wet is that you might end up going much faster at the end of the straight in wet conditions than you do in the dry conditions, because you don’t have that engine cut and the batteries are a lot more - you are not using as much energy. 

“So you might have much less cut in the straight and arrive faster at the end of the straight. So that is a little bit strange and counterintuitive. But it actually felt quite nice in the corners because the car is quite light."