Formula 1's rules revamp for this year, with energy-starved cars so reliant on battery power, was always going to make grand prix racing a different beast from what we knew before.
Some of the new regulations have worked well and some need addressing, which is why a series of meetings have been planned for the weeks before the Miami Grand Prix to try to revamp things.
Three races in, it is fair to say that drivers and teams have been on an incredible journey of discovery as they have unlocked their fair share of quirks with the new cars.
Here we look at 10 bizarre elements that have caught our attention so far this year, ranging from amusing glitches to dangerous flaws that need urgent action.
Accidental overtakes
Love it or hate it, a lot has been said about F1's new yo-yo style of racing.
But one of the strangest aspects of this fresh way of battling is that sometimes drivers have made passes by accident.
The most recent example was Lando Norris in the Japanese GP, when he found himself accidentally overtaking Lewis Hamilton.
Norris had fallen foul of an algorithm that drivers first became aware of in qualifying (more below) where, in backing off to avoid running into the back of Hamilton's Ferrari, he had automatically triggered a different engine configuration.
No longer in a power-limited mode, when he got back on the throttle his battery deployed a lot more than he wanted.
That was enough to carry him past Hamilton, but left him with an empty battery for the following straight - so he was quickly overtaken again.
It's why Norris has pointed to the racing, while exciting on TV, not being as "authentic" as it appears.
What's wrecking qualifying laps
A truly bizarre trick has been used by some teams this season to boost qualifying laps, using an emergency procedure to shut some of the power unit down.
F1 cars are supposed to follow a steady ramp down reduction in battery deployment levels down the straights - typically dropping away from the maximum 350kW in 50kW steps every one second - to help avoid the risks of a sudden, cliff-edge drop-off from full to zero power in an instant.
But Mercedes and Red Bull have found a way to keep running flat-out for longer, and avoid this ramp-down, in the final dash to the line on a qualifying lap. This means more power for longer to help shave off a bit more laptime.
They do this by activating an emergency measure that allows them to instantly switch off the MGU-K and go from the full 350kW down to zero. The consequence of this is that the MGU-K must then go into shutdown mode for 60 seconds.
That is rarely a problem for cooldown laps but, as has been seen several times now, including for Alex Albon in practice in Japan, it can cause cars to stop on track if the drivers are not ultra-careful in how they use their throttle.
The vanishing 50km/h on the straights
The dramatic speed drop-off that the F1 2026 cars suffer on long straights has been labelled as soul-destroying by Norris.
Whereas it was not uncommon for the previous generation of cars to hit top speed towards the end of a straight before they ran out of battery and slowed slightly before the corners, things are much more extreme now.
The Australian and Japanese GPs showed the worst of this as the cars dropped up to 50km/h from their peak speed halfway down the straights when they approached quick corners, where a change of active aero mode added to the woes.
The way that this speed drop-off looks and sounds from onboard cameras has become one of the aspects of the new rules that fans are particularly unhappy about.
It is no wonder that addressing this issue - to try to find ways for cars to reach top speed much nearer the end of straights - is one of the key targets of the meetings set before the Miami GP.
Terrifying closing speeds
The speed drop-offs at the end of straights, triggered either by cars running out of battery power or the need to harvest energy, has been one of the biggest safety concerns.
It is leading to situations where there are huge closing speeds, with the car in front slowing dramatically while the one behind potentially uses a bit more boost. There can be differences of around 50km/h in these moments.
It was this exact circumstance of cars on different energy deployment patterns that contributed to Bearman's huge Japanese GP crash.
The Haas driver had been caught out by the speed at which he caught the slower Alpine of Franco Colapinto ahead of him and took avoiding action. That put him on the grass, where he lost control and then spun off into the barriers at 308km/h.
That incident has highlighted that some of the quirks of these cars can have very dangerous consequences, which is why some fixes are needed urgently.
Slower is faster
The new generation of F1 cars have triggered a big rethink compared to previous eras, because there are times when it is actually quicker to go slower, even in qualifying.
The gains that can be had by harvesting a bit more energy on the way into a corner, and delaying getting on the throttle out of it, can be quite substantial when it comes to giving a driver a power boost on the straight afterwards.
Minimum speeds still count for a lot, but drivers are having to think a lot more about which corners are worth attacking on, and where it is better to take it easy.
Until the rules change, it means flat-out attacking qualifying laps are a thing of the past.
Context:
F1's 2026 cars feature energy algorithms that can accidentally trigger overtakes and ruin qualifying laps.
Context:
These quirks highlight how computer control is reshaping racing authenticity and driver skill requirements.
Context:
Teams are literally turning cars off and on again to fix software bugs during races.