Christian Horner fears the racing guidelines which have evolved for this season risk making Formula 1 “over-regulated” when it comes to on-track battles.

Changes to the racing guidelines for this year have introduced a fundamental change in how the F1 drivers are expected to battle.

Christian Horner feels F1 becoming ‘over-regulated’

Up until last season, the racing guidelines issued to the drivers and teams dictated that an attacking car on the outside of a rival was entitled to a car’s width on corner exit.

But this guideline has been refined for this year, with the requirement for the defending car to leave that car’s width on the exit no longer outlined.

This can result in moves such as Oscar Piastri’s defence against Max Verstappen at the start of the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix – a move which likely would have been against last year’s guidelines, but is fine under this year’s.

But the danger of this guideline change is that overtaking around the outside of another car has become far more difficult, with the defending driver now able to, essentially, just cut off another driver’s progress without the requirement to leave them space.

This change, believes Red Bull boss Christian Horner, is now making the racing unnatural in that drivers are driving with the regulations in mind, rather than allowing battles to naturally evolve.

“I think that it doesn’t feel like natural racing anymore,” he told media, including PlanetF1.com, after the Miami Grand Prix.

“It feels like maybe we’re becoming over-regulated in the wheel-to-wheel racing, because they’re racing to different lines, and I’m not sure whether we just need to… it’s becoming quite unnatural.

“So I don’t know whether we just need a little bit of a reset.

“It’d be good if perhaps the drivers were to discuss that in the next race, because it just feels like, when you introduce too many regulations, you end up driving to the regs, and it becomes a little unnatural.”

Oscar Piastri: It becomes about instinct

While Horner believes battles could become fruitless if the possibility of overtaking around the outside has been taken away, Piastri said his move in Saudi Arabia was one made on instinct and had nothing to do with driving to the updated guidelines.

“I wasn’t that surprised that it became such a big talking point,” he said.

“You know, it’s the lead of the race at Turn 1, and ultimately it’s what probably dictated the result. So I wasn’t that surprised. I think the call the stewards made was correct.

“I know that those are the rules and the guidelines, but I think also, when you take that away, I think being as far alongside as I was into the corner, at that point, I thought it was my corner, and I wasn’t going to back out at that point.

“I think, whenever you’re in that position, you’re always trying to claim the corner as best as you can.

“Maybe some people consciously think about the guidelines when they’re in that position, but I think it goes back to instinct and what you’ve grown up racing with and I think I’ve always grown up racing people firmly and expecting the same back.

“I’m sure there’s plenty of other people in the grid that have raced the same way growing up.

“Everyone’s probably got a slight different interpretation, but I think, in the moment, it comes down to instinct and not wanting to be overtaken.”

Read Next: Prost hits out at social media with Lewis Hamilton ‘finished’ theory rejected