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The Formula 1 2026 season has officially kicked off a couple of months ago, and just like they announced last year, EA has dropped the Season Pack update for F1 25 instead of a full fledged game.
New regulations, two new manufacturers, a battery-obsessed approach to driving, which all of us petrolheads dislike, and a brand new street circuit in Madrid. It's a lot, and after living with it for a while, it's very clear that this is the most dramatic change to how an F1 game actually feels to drive in years. A few of the real-world rule changes have been quietly toned down for the sake of fun, but we'll get to that.
Audi and Cadillac are now full manufacturers on the grid, and the driver line-ups have been updated to match the real-world silly season, including Valtteri Bottas and Sergio Perez heading up Cadillac's (not so impressive so far) debut. Your custom My Team squad slots in as the 12th entry, which is one long grid.
Unfortunately, your 2025 career save doesn't come with you. You're starting fresh for the 2026 cars, no exceptions. I get why, the cars are completely different under the skin, but that didn't make it hurt any less when I had to wave goodbye to a career I was several seasons deep into. Pour one out.
Battery is life now
The biggest change is in the battery (trying so hard to not sound like Marques Brownlee ). Energy management has gone from a background concern to the entire point. DRS is dead, replaced by Overtake Mode, which dumps full battery power into the car when you hit it. But the real story happens long before that. Battery is everything in the 2026 cars. Harvest more than the guy ahead of you, through lifting and coasting, and you will be faster. Simple as that.
This adds a genuinely fresh layer of strategy, deepening the tactical battle out there. You're constantly planning the lap ahead, conserving through certain corners so you can throw everything at a move when the moment comes. Get it wrong and you'll meet the now-infamous yo-yo effect: you sail past your rival, feel like a hero for about four seconds, then watch helplessly as he sails right back past you on the next straight because you blew your battery doing it. It's exactly how the real 2026 cars behave (or at least behaved before drivers learned a thing or two about it), and once it clicks, it's brilliant.
For anyone running assists off, it's one more plate to keep spinning alongside ERS, shifting, and tyre temps. But once it becomes muscle memory, the payoff is enormous. This is one of the most immersive racing games on the market, full stop, and nailing a perfectly judged battery overtake is up there with the best feelings the genre has to offer. You can stick energy recovery on auto and just drive, sure, but that's a bit like putting movement on auto in Call of Duty so you can focus on the shooting. Technically possible but completely wrong.
One thing EA has clearly softened is the power cliff on the straights. In real 2026 F1, the hybrid system can yank up to 250kW away from the engine to recharge the battery, and the effect on top speed is genuinely brutal to watch on the onboard cameras, cars visibly running out of legs before the braking zone. "GP2 engine, GP2" as the legend Fernando Alonso once said.
In the game, it's there, you'll feel the car asking for that last bit of grunt and not quite getting it, but it's nowhere near as savage as the real thing. Honestly, probably the right call. The full effect would suck a lot of the fun out of racing, especially online, where it would mostly result in people rage-quitting on the Kemmel straight.
Madrid: lovely track, same old walls
The new Madrid circuit is exciting but nothing we haven't seen before. The timing of its arrival is perfect, though - we've just wrapped up the Barcelona Grand Prix, where Lewis finally got his maiden win for Ferrari, and the real F1 circus doesn't actually rock up to Madrid until September. That gives you months to learn the place before anyone's turned a wheel there for real.
The track itself is trickier than it looks and genuinely good fun, with a few corners that gave me Miami flashbacks. My one gripe is the usual modern-F1 one: walls everywhere, hugging the track. Not a Madrid or F1 game problem specifically, more a "Formula 1 stopped being what it used to be a long time ago" problem.
The AI has taken another step forward, and it needed to. 2024 had arguably the worst AI in the series' history, 2025 fixed a lot of that, and 2026 pushes it further still. The cars are more aggressive into overtakes, defend their position like an actual human driver would, and crucially, make mistakes under pressure when they're being chased down. I even spotted a few slip ups when the AI was running solo with nobody breathing down their neck. I had Ocon hitting the iconic Wall of Champions during Canadian GP right in front of me and I wasn't even fighting for the position - glorious sight.
Also, AI no longer fold the second you stick your nose up the inside, which is music to the ears of anyone who's spent years racing polite, robotic traffic.
Visually, it's still the best-looking racing game out there, and it runs beautifully too. I said the same about 2025 and I'll say it again here. Forza Horizon 6 is a different animal entirely, so I'm not counting it, but within proper sim racing, nothing else is close.
Verdict
This DLC fundamentally changes how F1 25 plays, and overwhelmingly for the better. The battery overhaul adds real depth and makes every lap feel deliberate and meaningful, the new grid additions are handled well, and Madrid is a strong addition to the calendar. Losing the career saves stings, and the softened power-loss effect means it doesn't fully capture the drama of real 2026 F1, but as a package this is some of the most rewarding driving the series has served up in years.
The Good
New grid, teams and drivers- Brilliant Madrid street circuit
- Battery management adds real depth
The Bad
Career saves don't transfer- Softened power-loss effect
