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2026 Formula One Season Thread
- Thread starter The-Real-Deal82
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Haven’t watched the race, just saw the results, I said reliability would be a factor this season…. But I am finding this whole 50% battery 50% engine idea utterly stupid anyway. Only reason they’ve done it is to appease the climate change fanatics, if F1 wanted to do that properly they should stop flying the parade all around the globe every year as I expect that produces FAR more CO2’s then any race does.
Blah bring back the V10’s..
Blah bring back the V10’s..
Glideslope
macrumors G3
Valid point on the CO2 emissions from the fleet of 744’s. 200+ metric tons from each aircraft on a typical 8hr leg. Pax versions are typically 100kg per seat hour depending on density of course.
Kimi looking strong. Multi Universe Champion in the making.
Max had a failure with the MGU Heat Dissipation System. At least the PU was still running well. Let’s see how the upgrades work in Japan.
Incredible to see McLaren not start the race. Never thought I’d see that.
Unfortunate situation missing the April races, but obviously teams need some time. F1 would be smart to allow some testing in April.
Still reminds me of Formula 3 racing most of the time. Yo-Yo.
Edit: Tech Stuff
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CWallace
macrumors G5
Good luck with that. The Mercedes is on a completely different level than any other package at this point in the season. The other PU OEMs now have to wait until Barcelona before they can bring upgrades (technically Monaco, but I don't expect anyone to do so).
They did it to attract Audi and Audi is adamant they do not want to go back to naturally-aspirated engines - especially engines like V10s that have zero relevance to their commercial vehicles.
CWallace
macrumors G5
So having watched the VOD of the Chinese Grand Prix this morning, my thoughts:
- Four DNS, including both McLarens. Three of the four had Mercedes PUs, so are they strong, but fragile?
- I’ll take “Yo-Yo Passing” over “DRS Trains” any Sunday.
- Toto was throwing shade when he claimed the higher-compression ratio of the Mercedes ICE was “a handful of HP”. The speculation it is good for an extra 20-30HP is probably conservative considering how they just romped past both Ferrari’s on the back straight.
- While I was pulling my hair out at Charles and Lewis racing each other instead of Kimi and George, the fact is that at this point they are racing for third place so as long as they do not take each other out or let someone else past them into third, let em race and have fun.
Glideslope
macrumors G3
Maybe McLaren tried to use some Mercedes Mapping Settings and got nerfed by Mercedes? Covert Operations? Some OTA intervention……. /s 😉
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Time for balance of performance tweaks? 😉
Of course then it will end up who can do sandbagging the best.
Sadly those Papaya rules don't apply to other teams, so McLaren is in trouble.
CWallace
macrumors G5
Those will surely be coming, though with the April ME rounds cancelled, they are pushed back to no earlier than Monaco now and realistically not until Barcelona.
pachyderm
macrumors G5
Paul1964
macrumors 6502
Just watched the race, well done Kimi!! Man that is going to get confusing having TWO Kimi’s in F1 lol. As for the Ferrari’s…. ??????? Wwhhhhhyyyyyyyy?? Like why did thy choose to fight for half the Grand Prix? They could have stopped squabbling, caught up to the Mercedes and used tactics to overtake them. Instead they bickered and ended up miles behind Kimi and allowed George to take second.
Also a THIRD of the field failed to finish or even start due to reliability issues..
Also a THIRD of the field failed to finish or even start due to reliability issues..
TheIntruder
macrumors 68020
Perhaps he might have signed up only for the races with F2 on the schedule, when he can accompany his son.
Or maybe they don't have any good cheeseburgers in China? 😄
The bar for announcing teams isn't very high these days, and many sports.
If a Mercedes will end up at the top when the season concludes, I'm rooting for Kimi.
This is season 1 in a long series under the new regulations, this 1st season is almost a year of testing, of getting the bugs out, in the olden days, when you updated a system, you often ran both the new and the old in parallel until you figured out the issues, then migrated, and that is the key word, migrated, ie, slow move across from one to another...
Animals migrate across the Serengeti, they don't teleport.. F1 teleports from old regs to new regs, in a week or less...
You have a month now, crickets for the fans, but a month to do 10 000km in testing across 15 test days, in Europe..
The biggest issue in F1... bogged starts, Max from mid grid..sees everyone going to Glastonbury, and he is stuck on the side of the road, with only a box neutrals.. Brutal.. Hundreds of cars overtaking...
F1 is flawed, there is something wrong... The "boost" the way cars generate energy, recover battery. Any yet, once all the excitement calmed down, after about 3 laps, game over.. Mercs in front, Ferrari confused over strategy..
Cars should be cars, and not sugar water powered mobile servers.. Computers for sending emails, not for AI learning the car, are we moving into a AI formula in 2028--->?
Animals migrate across the Serengeti, they don't teleport.. F1 teleports from old regs to new regs, in a week or less...
You have a month now, crickets for the fans, but a month to do 10 000km in testing across 15 test days, in Europe..
The biggest issue in F1... bogged starts, Max from mid grid..sees everyone going to Glastonbury, and he is stuck on the side of the road, with only a box neutrals.. Brutal.. Hundreds of cars overtaking...
F1 is flawed, there is something wrong... The "boost" the way cars generate energy, recover battery. Any yet, once all the excitement calmed down, after about 3 laps, game over.. Mercs in front, Ferrari confused over strategy..
Cars should be cars, and not sugar water powered mobile servers.. Computers for sending emails, not for AI learning the car, are we moving into a AI formula in 2028--->?
The race was kind of entertaining with Ferrari giving us the most action, with honourable mentions to Bearman, Ocon, and Gasly. Great to see Kimi (Antonelli, not Raikkonen Mr Announcer) win his first Grand Prix. Loved him telling Lewis he was just one years old when Lewis won the Canadian GP back in 2007, ouch lol.
Lots of fans unhappy with the performance gaps and many won't remember the late 80's and early 90's when some teams were as much as 3 seconds a lap quicker. I got called a 'new fan' yesterday for that observation despite obviously being on that forum since 1998, and by a guy who had joined in 2022 lol. I do hope the gaps close and we get more than two teams capable of wins, but with such a lame set of regulations, we knew Mercedes were rumoured to be unbeatable going into this season. Many also don't seem to understand that F1 has close ties with the automotive sector and is used as an R&D category developing technologies that are eventually used in road cars. The regs suit the likes of Honda, Ford, Mercedes, and even Ferrari to a point. Without this relationship, most of the major players would be absent, although Honda, Renault and Ford come and go at the drop of a hat.
Lots of fans unhappy with the performance gaps and many won't remember the late 80's and early 90's when some teams were as much as 3 seconds a lap quicker. I got called a 'new fan' yesterday for that observation despite obviously being on that forum since 1998, and by a guy who had joined in 2022 lol. I do hope the gaps close and we get more than two teams capable of wins, but with such a lame set of regulations, we knew Mercedes were rumoured to be unbeatable going into this season. Many also don't seem to understand that F1 has close ties with the automotive sector and is used as an R&D category developing technologies that are eventually used in road cars. The regs suit the likes of Honda, Ford, Mercedes, and even Ferrari to a point. Without this relationship, most of the major players would be absent, although Honda, Renault and Ford come and go at the drop of a hat.
They changed the entire platform and regulations and forced new R&D to appease Audi so they could have free R&D development for their road cars? Wow. I never thought Audi as being that important?
The reason the people at the back end were so far behind was because of Ferrari, the more they squabbled the further down the track Kimi went and the further behind everyone else became, if they didn't do that and instead concentrated on getting to the front and taking positions then the gap wouldn't have been so big.
FYI folks there is SOME talk amongst the FIA of potentially changing the balance of the cars to a 60/40 split with 40 being the battery power, so they may be realising the mistake they've made.....
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I think Lewis would have been 10 seconds adrift, rather than 25 seconds had he not battled with Charles. At least it spiced up what could have been an extremely dull race. Increasing the split would hopefully reduce the amount of lift and coast drivers are having to do and bring it a bit closer to the old 80/20 split in the old regs. We may see reliability of the PU's coming into the mix if they are suddenly expected to operate at a 10% increase. I think Max will be even more frustrated seeing as the Ford PU is rumoured to be rather fragile.
Oh yes I enjoyed the battle thoroughly. MUCH better than last weekend. Proper racing.
Glideslope
macrumors G3
Excellent analysis from Peter Windsor on the state of F1 in 2026. Exactly as I see it, IMO. It’s a long deep dive, but worth it if you respect Peter as I do. Very accurate breakdown on Max’s comments as well as the lack of cornering speed makes rubbish look like side by side racing.
People complain about managing battery, but in the old days they had to manage fuel in the turbo era.
Clever drivers like Prost would use a trip computer style device to know when he could reach the end of a GP with high power, while others were in fuel saving mode, presumably leaving his rivals as sitting ducks.
Group C sports cars was a fuel economy formula as well and everyone loved that. Drivers and teams had to very carefully manage fuel consumption- hence why the Mercedes M119HL engine became so effective, production based, economical, reliable and powerful enough. In safety car conditions it would run very economically.
Jaguar had a clever engine management system on its large capacity and low revving V12 that ran the engine lean at appropriate times, which running it richer when on the straight at Le Mans, giving enough power to be able to run a long 5th gear and reach ~245mph, enough speed that most rivals couldn’t easily catch it. Tom Walkinshaw persistently wanted a turbo engine but the large simple V12 was proven to be effective.
Small, highly strung turbo engines were at a disadvantage. Yes they could be powerful, but they also needed to consume a relatively large amount of fuel to do it. So a Toyota turbo V8 at reportedly 1000hp in qualifying had nothing like that in the race, while the Jaguar V12 had 745-755hp at all times, even at 24 hour race conditions.
All that said I cannot watch this modern hybrid turbo F1 era. I preferred the 90s when we had 8, 10 and glorious 12 cylinder engines.
Clever drivers like Prost would use a trip computer style device to know when he could reach the end of a GP with high power, while others were in fuel saving mode, presumably leaving his rivals as sitting ducks.
Group C sports cars was a fuel economy formula as well and everyone loved that. Drivers and teams had to very carefully manage fuel consumption- hence why the Mercedes M119HL engine became so effective, production based, economical, reliable and powerful enough. In safety car conditions it would run very economically.
Jaguar had a clever engine management system on its large capacity and low revving V12 that ran the engine lean at appropriate times, which running it richer when on the straight at Le Mans, giving enough power to be able to run a long 5th gear and reach ~245mph, enough speed that most rivals couldn’t easily catch it. Tom Walkinshaw persistently wanted a turbo engine but the large simple V12 was proven to be effective.
Small, highly strung turbo engines were at a disadvantage. Yes they could be powerful, but they also needed to consume a relatively large amount of fuel to do it. So a Toyota turbo V8 at reportedly 1000hp in qualifying had nothing like that in the race, while the Jaguar V12 had 745-755hp at all times, even at 24 hour race conditions.
All that said I cannot watch this modern hybrid turbo F1 era. I preferred the 90s when we had 8, 10 and glorious 12 cylinder engines.
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CWallace
macrumors G5
And will this throw the Championship even more in Mercedes' favor since they have the most powerful ICE on the grid right now?
Glideslope
macrumors G3
A VIP was allowed into the post race weight station and took pictures of the weights without fuel. The RB22 is 19kg overweight empty. This explains a little bit.
I’ll wager that’s going to be it for VIP Weigh Station access for the remainder of time. TBF, it’s looks like they were taking a picture of the car and sharp eyes saw the weight.
I’ll wager that’s going to be it for VIP Weigh Station access for the remainder of time. TBF, it’s looks like they were taking a picture of the car and sharp eyes saw the weight.