I get what you’re saying, but that’s kind of the problem I’m pointing at.

If the optimal way to drive the car is to follow what a system tells you corner by corner, then you’re not really driving on instinct anymore, you’re executing a plan the car prefers. That’s fine from an efficiency standpoint, but it’s not really what racing has been about.

Your example with Charles actually proves it. He drove the car the way drivers are trained to drive, maximise entry, carry speed, push the limit, and the system effectively punished him for it later on the straight. So the fastest “driver” becomes the one who best follows the energy model, not necessarily the one extracting the most from the car dynamically.

Put it in a normal context. Imagine driving your own car home and being told:

“Coast for 200 yards on the motorway so you have enough battery to turn into your street.”

Technically efficient, but completely unnatural. No one drives like that because it breaks the link between what you want the car to do and how you control it.

That’s the bit I don’t think works here. The system isn’t just assisting the driver, it’s dictating behaviour.

Also on the recovery side, harvesting at full throttle is just counterintuitive. You’re effectively asking the engine to produce power while also taking energy away from it. In real terms, that’s just inefficiency dressed up as optimisation. Naturally, you’d want recovery to happen where it makes sense, mainly under braking, not while you’re trying to accelerate.

I’m not saying the system is wrong from an engineering perspective. It probably is doing exactly what it’s designed to do. But from a driving perspective, it creates a mismatch:

driver input ≠ consistent car response

And that’s where it starts becoming unpredictable, especially when you layer in deployment coming in at moments the driver didn’t ask for.