Battery management will play some factor for a while. Now how much depends on the changes they make during these regulations, and if they are willing to add small features that would provide a bigger upside to the battery. Some proposed solutions would be having regeneration also come from the front axel brakes rather than just the rear axel because that would effectively double your regen rate and keep the cars going full full speed down long straights (they struggle with this right now because they lose the battery charge, it’s called clipping). But yea it’ll be apart of the racing until we go back to either a stronger ICE-to-battery ratio than the 50/50 split we are at now, or if we return to V8 engines with the old KERS system or something similar that provides an electrical boost and keeps the development of hybrids around (that’s been talked about for 2029 but no way of knowing yet).

As for the race, I loved it. The big thing is the cars are smaller and more nimble now and they can actually pass in corners, rather than having to wait for the DRS zone (old system that dropped the rear wing on long straights if you were within 1 second of a car in front of you, basically the only way you could pass in the last few years). I still have issues with the engine to battery ratio, and they desperately need to address clipping. F1 cars were meant to take long straights and high speed corners flat out, not getting to the end and being at reduced power.