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2026 Formula One Season Thread

In my life span, I have witnessed 2 absolute clangers, decisions that leave you wondering what pyschiatrist released the citizens...
1: That insanity of a qualifying, the 1 lap farce..before we had the Q sessions we have now...
2: Super Clipping, fast in the slow bits, slow in the fast bits, cars no longer requiring brakes, as super clipping is awesome...

Maybe the 3rd clanger, only cause they are too scared to try, Monaco from finish to start.. Only in the list cause fear makes certain folks all stupid..
 
pachyderm said:
White, the absence of any color, paint is actually lighter ...




lol, Just kidding.
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Apple fanboy said:
But that’s what the Silver arrows used to run (for that exact reason).
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Paul1964 said:
Yeah they actually scraped the paint off from the old Silver Arrows to save weight - hence the silver colour was actually bare aluminium.

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And the official racing color of Germany was at the time (and technically remains today), white.
 
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LawVS with an interesting video today.


The tl;dr
  1. As a number of folks here have suggested, Mercedes appears to have a software advantage that they are not required to share with their customers;
  2. Mercedes may be sand-bagging at these early races to try and keep the engine performance gap under the 2% trigger to deny the other OEMs ADUO improvements as long as possible.
  3. Ferrari believes they are 15hp down to Mercedes and are already developing improvements they expect to be able to implement under ADUO. However, the calculation applies to both the factory and customer teams, so as those teams come to grips with the Mercedes PU, they may reach a performance level that trigger ADUO regardless of any sand-bagging by the Mercedes team.
 
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CWallace said:
And the official racing color of Germany was at the time (and technically remains today), white.
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Found this on Wikipedia.

1774299878977.png
 
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JustinePaula said:
That is a car, 2026 is the byproduct of a bovine's digestive system... Maybe they can fix the regulations in April.. Revert back to cars from 2025?? At least for 2026...
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Uh, the 2025 cars weren't real cars either. Any of the modern hybrid F1 cars are blah... 2025 or 2026 both as boring as each other.

There is a Youtube video online (sans commentary) of a race restart at Indianapolis with the 3.0L V10 cars, now that is real F1.

The 12 cylinder version of the W125 (736hp) was even better, it was used for very fast races (and also the speed record runs). You didn't want to be near them when they started up, the fumes from the exhaust caused serious irritations for peoples eyes and also breathing. That quickly became known back in the day and folks would keep well away from the Mercedes cars.

Paul1964 said:
Found this on Wikipedia.
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Except GB cars have been Black and Gold (Lotus), also blue, white and yellow (Williams), red (Williams), white/red (Williams with Lavazza sponsorship) and white/green/stripes (Williams), yellow/blue (Lotus). Tyrrell was often but not always blue.

The official country colours went out the window pretty quickly when sponsorship got big.
 
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avro707 said:
Uh, the 2025 cars weren't real cars either. Any of the modern hybrid F1 cars are blah... 2025 or 2026 both as boring as each other.

There is a Youtube video online (sans commentary) of a race restart at Indianapolis with the 3.0L V10 cars, now that is real F1.

The 12 cylinder version of the W125 (736hp) was even better, it was used for very fast races (and also the speed record runs). You didn't want to be near them when they started up, the fumes from the exhaust caused serious irritations for peoples eyes and also breathing. That quickly became known back in the day and folks would keep well away from the Mercedes cars.




Except GB cars have been Black and Gold (Lotus), also blue, white and yellow (Williams), red (Williams), white/red (Williams with Lavazza sponsorship) and white/green/stripes (Williams), yellow/blue (Lotus). Tyrrell was often but not always blue.

The official country colours went out the window pretty quickly when sponsorship got big.
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British Recing Green was used for a while with the Lotus Team that became Caterham and Aston Martin are using a lighter hue of it currently. Alpine are Blue. Ferrari are red. Mercedes are (partly) silver.

So ... some teams are using their national colours, 4 out of the 11. But you're right, it's not mandatory and is so ancient it predates F1 - by a lot.

It dates back to the time Gordon Bennett was promoting motor racing. Yes, he's that Gordon Bennett of the origin of the "GORDON BENNETT!" exclamation familiar with some of our Britsh members. (Even though he was Ameican.) Fun fact, there's still a balloon race named after him.

Phrase Origin:

Bennett often scandalized society with his flamboyant and sometimes erratic behavior. In 1877, he left New York for Europe after an incident that ended his engagement to socialite Caroline May. According to various accounts, he arrived late and drunk to a party at the May family mansion, then urinated into a fireplace (some say grand piano) in full view of his hosts.

Bennett's controversial reputation is thought to have inspired, in Britain, the phrase "Gordon Bennett!" as an expression of incredulity.
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Something went wrong, maybe the AI used to generate this season's regs for F1 had a headache? Toothache, ball-ache, but it is just the product of a male bovine's digestive system... Truly awful, worse than the farce of 1 lap Q...

Maybe the cancelled events is a blessing, 2/3 maybe fewer races is a good thing....

What I hope for is that this last race of this early part of the season is not weather affected.. The silly race starts in the rain, yikes, makes me very concerned...
 
pachyderm said:
Old news?
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Yes, when Wheatley left Audi as Team Principal, it was widely speculated that he would be taking over that role at Aston Martin.



Speaking of AM, Jack Crawford will be in Alonso's car during FP1 in Japan. It is believed this is to give Jack a chance to see how the real car compares to all the simulation he has been running as correlation has been said to still be a pain point for the team. It will also give Alonso a bit of a break from the physical stress of driving the car over the weekend. Honda is said to have made changes to the PU to help reduce the vibrations, however it sounds like Newey has done nothing to address the chassis' contributions, so it remains to be seen if the drivers can yet complete a race distance as the vibrations are said to be worse during the race.



Under the Ground Effect era, Suzuka was effectively a single-track track with no real opportunity to pass unless you risked a dive-bomb through the Casio Triangle. Even with Suzuka being a "power-starved" track (offering roughly 20% more energy recovery than Albert Park), if you have the guts (and the battery charge), we could see actual passing this race - even through places like 130R that were impossible in the Ground Effect era.
 
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Compare to the sim? I know AI is pretty poor at this point in F1.. But I fear for the lad.... He will wish he had taken up truck racing, or horse racing, much safer, and more predictable.. If there is rain in FP1, would the team risk the car? Japan and rain, like in Spa.. always linked..
 

Mercedes show off wolf-inspired livery change for Japanese Grand Prix:​



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Really looks like it's just the front wing...
 
JustinePaula said:
Compare to the sim? I know AI is pretty poor at this point in F1..
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AI is actually pretty important to F1. Mercedes spent a pretty penny to poach Microsoft AI from Alpine and many believe they have been using AI to optimize their engine mappings, which is why they can get so much more out of their engine than their customer teams.

As for Aston, Lance is absolutely useless at developing the car. He can barely drive the thing, much less have even the most basic level of understanding of it. When he bothers to comment at all, he is always negative and he has said the current car is the worst PoS he has driven in his entire career (surely endearing him to Newey).

So the engineers are completely dependent on Fernando for feedback on the actual car and on Jack for feedback on the simulator. But for years Aston has not been able to accurately correlate their wind tunnel, CFD and simulation data with the actual on-track performance of the car. So Fernando and Jack are critical to try and develop the car, which is why I think Aston will offer Fernando a very lucrative extension to stay in 2027.


JustinePaula said:
If there is rain in FP1, would the team risk the car? Japan and rain, like in Spa.. always linked..
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The weekend is expected to be clear and pleasant.
 
I hope it doesn't get too wet, a little dampness, a good thing, but as we know, monsoon like rain can cause issues...

Personally AI should be banned..Then why do we need a huge army of PHD's, just buy a couple of hp laptops...Let the AI decide....

Work from home, 2 drivers, 1 team principal, 2 mechanics to change tyres, 1 cook to prepare meals...

And 1 PHD to fix the team principals laptop..We don't need a crew of 100 every weekend flying...7 in total...7...Fit on a cheap used jet...
 
JustinePaula said:
Compare to the sim? I know AI is pretty poor at this point in F1.. But I fear for the lad.... He will wish he had taken up truck racing, or horse racing, much safer, and more predictable.. If there is rain in FP1, would the team risk the car? Japan and rain, like in Spa.. always linked..
Click to expand...
The Aston Martin Valkyrie was being driven in the simulator (Redbull Advanced Technology) well before the first cars were built. At Spa in the sim it was reaching over 330km/h in a straight line.

And we know how fast that car is now on track, especially high speed tracks like Silverstone.
 
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So, Max Verstappen threw The Guardian's Giles Richard out of his press event in Suzuka over Richard's question after Abu Dhabi if Max regretted hitting George Russel in Spain, costing him the points he needed to secure the 2025 WDC over Lando Norris.

In other news, as Suzuka is an "energy-starved" track, for qualifying the FIA has reduced the energy regeneration at the track from the full 9MJ to 8MJ. While this will result in a slower overall lap (so do not expect a new Q3 record), the cars will not need to super-clip or lift and coast as much during their qualifying laps which should result in a more interesting qualifying session. On the flip side, teams have prepared for qualifying assuming they would have 9MJ, so now they will have to adjust their plans with the lower level.

www.formula1.com

FIA reveal power unit tweaks ahead of Suzuka Qualifying

Formula 1’s governing body have revealed changes to the current cars’ energy management ahead of Qualifying for the Japanese Grand Prix.
www.formula1.com www.formula1.com
 
The-Real-Deal82 said:
I cringed a bit at this but Max embarrassed himself at the start of the media event at Suzuka. He’s been rather frustrated this season so far and improvements don’t seem to be coming quick enough at Red Bull.
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what did Giles ask him in Abu Dhabi ?
Also, grow up Max.
AAhhhhh....
www.gpfans.com

F1 journalist kicked out by Verstappen breaks silence over Japanese GP storm

Verstappen caused a scene early on in Suzuka
www.gpfans.com www.gpfans.com



EDIT: Antonelli holds the Suzuka track record, 1m 30.965s, 2025 so I'm expecting him to do well her again this weekend.
 
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The-Real-Deal82 said:
I cringed a bit at this but Max embarrassed himself at the start of the media event at Suzuka. He’s been rather frustrated this season so far and improvements don’t seem to be coming quick enough at Red Bull.
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Here's the original question for reference:

Q: (Giles Richards - The Guardian) Max, you lost out to Lando by just two points. What do you think now about the incident with George Russell in Spain? Do you regret that looking back in hindsight?

I can understand Max not wanting to think about that after having just lost the championship. But to hold such a grudge four months later over a mundane question is pretty silly. Richards hadn't even asked a question in today's event before Max threw a tantrum.
 
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It was cringey, but the man is deeply frustrated at this point. He despises the 2026 rule-set, FOM refuses to admit anything is wrong and the FIA is doing their best, but they have at least one hand tied behind their back because of the need for team unanimity on changes to that rule-set and Mercedes and Ferrari don't want to give up their respective advantages.

Then add in the RB22 is overweight and a handling nightmare on the level of the early RB21 and the Red Bull Ford DM01 PU is a distant third to the Mercedes-AMG F1 M17 and Ferrari 067/6. He knows this is not going to be 2025 - Mercedes is not going to sabotage themselves like McLaren did and even if the team rallies and significantly improves the car and PU, it will not be enough with the lead Mercedes and Ferrari will have built by then.
 
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