The new hybrid engines - with their 50-50 split between internal combustion and electrical power, and energy recovery limited by regulatory choices - have led to a new style of racing wheel to wheel, and changed the fundamental nature of what drivers do. Hamilton's battle with Leclerc - and theirs in the opening laps with the Mercedes drivers of maiden race-winner Kimi Antonelli and George Russell - was a function of what many would consider the positive effects of the new engines on racing. Certainly, the most superficially attractive. The "boost" and "overtake" modes provide extra electrical energy to help drivers pass their rivals. But then leave the driver who has used them short of battery charge, so they are vulnerable to being re-passed. Even when a driver has a fundamentally superior car - such as the Mercedes - it can take time for this to balance out. While it does, the result is several laps of position-swapping. This is even allowing the fast-starting Ferraris to mix it with the Mercedes in the early stages of race, for a few laps at least, even though Hamilton reckons Mercedes "have 0.4-0.5secs on us in race trim". In the case of Hamilton and Leclerc, in identical cars, the battle ebbed and flowed for two thirds of the race, with peaks of several laps of excitement interspersed with periods of stalemate, before Hamilton finally came out on top. As Hamilton put it while sitting alongside Antonelli and Russell in the post-race news conference: "Of course, these guys are pulling past us at crazy speeds, but to be able to all be so close… "Hopefully it was an exciting race to watch for you guys because it was awesome in the car. It felt like go-karting - back and forth, back and forth - and you could really position your car in a nice way where there was a thin piece of paper between us sometimes, but we didn't exchange any paint. "Great wheel-to-wheel battle, very fair and just what we want. I think that's down to great drivers and respect." The flip side is the philosophical questions at the heart of this debate. On a surface level, boost buttons and extra electrical energy smack of computer games - hence Verstappen's remark about Mario Kart, the second time he had used the analogy in four days in Shanghai. But the engines are also affecting what the drivers do on their own. The cars' energy starvation has changed the nature of driving. The job of an F1 team is to get their car around a lap as fast as possible. In 2026, that means keeping the battery levels high enough to deploy where it has maximum effect on lap time. And because the electrical components are so powerful - 350kw (470bhp) - they over-ride cornering. In the lead battle, that's why a car with a better engine, the Mercedes, is currently beating a car faster around the corners, the Ferrari.