Apple fanboy
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Ideally you’d want to mix it up. Flying starts at races where passing is difficult, better top speed at races with long straights.
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2026 Formula One Season Thread
- Thread starter The-Real-Deal82
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CWallace
macrumors G5
And yet both Charles and Lewis were able to keep George and Lando at bay thanks to smarter energy strategy. Neither had Overtake on their attacker, but they were able to use Boost strategically to keep the door closed. If this had been 2025, the Mercedes and McLaren would have sailed by on DRS and both would have been sitting ducks.
Bearman saw (or at least should have seen) the Harvesting Lights activate on Colapinto and know he was slowing down (not to mention everyone was slowing down into that corner to harvest so even if he did not see them, he had to know Colapinto would slow). Colapinto moving into the inside line is what forced Bearman to take evasive action and that is, IMO, on Colapinto.
IMO, you can't blame Colapinto for slowing more than Bearman. You can, IMO, blame Colapinto for trying to close the door on Bearman when he saw him storming up the inside. As such, the stewards should have lowered the boom on Colapinto, but it seems like they considered it a racing incident?
McLaren knows how to develop a car.
He would have finished second instead of fourth. Kimi was consistently a half-second a lap faster than him so he would eventually have passed him.
Yup, probably a benefit and detriment of the smaller turbo. It spools up faster so they have more power through and exiting out of the corner, but once on the straight, the larger turbo of the Mercedes can generate more power (plus whatever other advantages Mercedes has with their ICE beyond the turbo).
They are going to need ADUO, which they should have at Canada.
Yes, Mercedes made a rear suspension geometry change between FP3 and Qualifying and it did not agree with George.
Yeah the chassis was not a match for Gasly's Alpine and the PU was not a match for the Mercedes in said Alpine.
I presume they cannot (at least easily) change the turbo diameter, so they will need to do something else with their ADUO credit to improve their top end power on straights.
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Glideslope
macrumors G3
I can’t agree. Yes it took an extra 10 laps for a Mercedes to walk away. A 14 sec gap at the end is massive. George was an easy P2 without the suspension misstep.
I see the DRS train simply renamed as the ERS train. In the cool down room they aren’t taking about pushing their skill sets and cars. It’s all about their batteries. To me that’s fine for endurance racing. Not F1. Should have stayed with the MGU-H setup.
Yes they do. Today was more about finding their Mapping for the PU than chassis setup, IMO. They’ve obviously hit on something between China and Japan.
Edit: Typo
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pachyderm
macrumors G5
Colapinto = His fault all the way. Their mirrors aren't for show. Be aware of your surroundings.
Way to go Kimi!
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CWallace
macrumors G5
That is just what having the best PU does for you. It would be even worse if the ICE was still 80% of the power balance considering how much more powerful the M17 ICE is compared to (in order) the Ferrari, Audi, RBFPT and Honda.
Battery management is a skill set. Just as fuel management was in the refueling days or tire management has been forever. We're three races in - all of them "fly-away" where the teams are very limited on how they can debrief, process their data and make changes.
I want to see how things are as we enter the summer break after a bit over a third of the season under their belts and five races in Europe (Spain-Hungary) when the teams can much more adeptly adapt and the non-Mercedes PUs have had a round of ADUO updates applied.
Glideslope
macrumors G3
The latest brewing outrage (courtesy of media looking for a story) is the podium celebrations where the winner wasn't able to spray or consume champagne due to the laws in Japan. Sigh.
As for the technical rules on battery management / energy recovery, wonder if we could see threats of a breakaway championship? It's about time for that - and the media would love it. 😀
As for the technical rules on battery management / energy recovery, wonder if we could see threats of a breakaway championship? It's about time for that - and the media would love it. 😀
CWallace
macrumors G5
We've seen that for years where they hand out rose water instead of Moët & Chandon champagne at some of the races hosted in Muslim countries where alcohol consumption is banned or heavily-regulated to private locations.
There is far too much money in play to ever make a return of FOCA or FOTA a reality now.
What needs to happen - and what I expect will happen - is for all the stakeholders (FIA, FOM, team principals and drivers) meet and try and come to some general consensus on what changes can be made through 2026 and what can be done in 2027 and 2028 via additional ADUO opportunities beyond what the current rules allow per a season.
And the more you roll-back the battery's contribution to power generation, the slower you are going to make the cars across the weekend. The cars are already multiple seconds slower with a 50/50 ratio and that could easily double with a 65-35 ratio. And with the current strength of the Mercedes ICE, making it more important makes the teams and drivers running that even more dominant over the teams that do not run it for 2026.
LIV F1? I could see LIV talking to drivers, ex F1 team principles, buying into circuits, for them it is play money.. You say to Max you could earn x at F1 or 10X at LIV.. You think Max and others, Alonso, Lewis, Kimi A, would stick around in F1??
A new series that is 100% engine power, no batteries.. For more cash...
What change needs to be made for a wet Spa? Reduce the risk, or not race? 24 season to a 22, then a 21, then maybe more races dropped..
A new series that is 100% engine power, no batteries.. For more cash...
What change needs to be made for a wet Spa? Reduce the risk, or not race? 24 season to a 22, then a 21, then maybe more races dropped..
I thought this was a bit of a dull race and couldn't get too excited by the anticipation Lewis, Charles, George and Lando having enough battery reserved for the straights. I am surprised Colapinto wasn't penalised for closing the door on Bearman as it was clear he was must faster heading into the braking zone. Causing a heavy shunt resulting in injury is just not cool.
Max is considering retirement according to every tabloid headline, and his comments after the race seem more news worthy than the actual racing according to journalists. Even seen articles suggesting Mercedes need to make him an offer quick and get rid of George, even though both Mercedes drivers are doing what they need to do. Max is clearly winding us all up and doing his damnedest not to employ those 'win in any car' abilities just to get that Mercedes contract.
What do we talk about for 2 months? 😲
Max is considering retirement according to every tabloid headline, and his comments after the race seem more news worthy than the actual racing according to journalists. Even seen articles suggesting Mercedes need to make him an offer quick and get rid of George, even though both Mercedes drivers are doing what they need to do. Max is clearly winding us all up and doing his damnedest not to employ those 'win in any car' abilities just to get that Mercedes contract.
What do we talk about for 2 months? 😲
I guess rumours of a break away league.. Max racing for Liv? Indy Car is better than F1? I wonder if the F in F1 is Flatulence 1? All smell and no substance..
pachyderm
macrumors G5
Yeah I thought that was a pretty egregious driving error of Colapinto as well.
That can't spray champagne? Wonder what the law says... or why it says it.
Max is going to pout out of F1? He thinks he's so much better than everyone else that he can't have a middling car? Jesus.
He hasn't always had the best, although they have all been pretty competitive, car in his career.
Fun fact: I haven't seen any race live this season. I've only been able to watch the replays. Apple's broadcast yesterday showed a running time of over 4 hours. Thank God for "fast forward". Their commentators are still awful.
The grid walk is painful. Is Alex worse then Martin?
Glideslope
macrumors G3
Bernie Collins didn't sound too confident about the feasibility of making the engine stronger. Packaging, cooling etc have all been designed around having much weaker engines.
In the short term I think they'll settle on making the MGU-K output much weaker (reducing the output to 200kW would give around 16s of full power deployment, for example).
At the same time, the engine needs to be powerful enough to sustain a top speed of over 300kph. We need the ICE to produce about 20-25% more power. That’s a huge ask for the ICE.
Oliver Bearman demonstrated just how stupid these new regs and power trains are! You have one car with massive speed and one with slow speed due to one harvesting, one deploying the battery power.
And some of these drivers just don't seem to understand this. We could possibly see a big big crash this year with these regs.
This entire 50 50 hybrid dumb idea is a farce, really is. But the American owners have been defending it claiming what wonderful racing it provides, well yes when one car is harvesting and going 20% slower with no power left then one car deploying all power flying past them...
It IS Mario Kart F1.
And some of these drivers just don't seem to understand this. We could possibly see a big big crash this year with these regs.
This entire 50 50 hybrid dumb idea is a farce, really is. But the American owners have been defending it claiming what wonderful racing it provides, well yes when one car is harvesting and going 20% slower with no power left then one car deploying all power flying past them...
It IS Mario Kart F1.
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Sorry but I stand by Max 100% to be honest, the British press live in the gutter 99% of the time, they write as such and twist everything. They have been guilty of some horrific manipulation of stories before and have NO low levels they won't reach to get information.
I have a VERY dim view of British press.
pachyderm
macrumors G5
espn:
www.espn.com
Carlos Sainz: FIA ignored driver warnings before Oliver Bearman crash
Carlos Sainz hit out at Formula 1 and its governing body FIA for ignoring driver warnings predicting the type of crash Oliver Bearman had at the Japanese Grand Prix, saying they resisted changes "because the racing is exciting".
CWallace
macrumors G5
At issue too is that fuel capacity has been reduced from 100kg to 70kg and I doubt there is room to expand that with how tight everything is packaged. So even if they could run the ICE harder to recover the 25% power drop a 150kW reduction in energy store would incur, you would have to shorten each race distance by 25-30% to ensure the field did not run out of fuel before the end.
And you have team principals like Toto who are perfectly happy with the current regulations because his team and drivers are benefitting the most from them. So expect him to be pushing back on any major changes put forward during the April strategy meeting.
And you have team principals like Toto who are perfectly happy with the current regulations because his team and drivers are benefitting the most from them. So expect him to be pushing back on any major changes put forward during the April strategy meeting.
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CWallace
macrumors G5
So the reason no champagne was present on the podium is the drinking age in Japan is 20 and Kimi is 18.
As minors are often not allowed in areas where alcohol is being served, this rule likely was in effect for the podium so if they had champagne, Kimi could not be there. 😛
As minors are often not allowed in areas where alcohol is being served, this rule likely was in effect for the podium so if they had champagne, Kimi could not be there. 😛
CWallace
macrumors G5
Unlike the PGA, FOM has welcomed Saudi money and they already sponsor the sport as a whole, along with teams (Aston Martin) and events (including Japan and Spain).
And the Saudis will listen to the drivers even less than the FIA, FOM and current teams do and the latter do not listen to them at all. The driver's input was ignored while developing the current rules as well as during the Barcelona and Bahrain tests and and they are not invited to the upcoming April strategy session.
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I'm not a huge fan of the British press either and they are just as brutal towards our own sports people when they are not winning. Lewis probably shares the sentiment as he has been cruciified many times over the past 2 decades.
I do think the Giles Richards was incident was poor from Max though, he could have handled it so much better and looked better for it. It all stemmed from a question Giles asked in Abu Dhabi and although it was provocative, it was also an expected question from the media due to how close the title had been and the fact it was questioning an incident that was entirely under Max's control that cost him valuable points. Max took issue with Giles 'smirking', but the smirk came after the question was asked and due to the petulence in how Max responded the question, something there is footage of. I know if someone I am talking to gets wound up by something I say, I usuaully laugh or smirk out of awkwardness or amusement and sometimes its difficult to control. We often see really stupid questions directed at drivers and they are just dodged or answered briefly. I think the British press will capitalise on a weakness they have seen now with Max and his dislike for scrutiny, something he has shown all through his career. Most notably when he suggested the next person to ask him a particular question was going to get 'punched in the face' lol. With Max hinting he is considering retirement, I think the press will employ a more critical approach in both Britain and Italy.
Nope, the FIA and certainly 'influencers' have banned drivers from being involved in discussions.
I think they need to hold a boycott to get things changed. It is a farce and I guarantee Toto has been heavily involved in these new regulations.....
Glideslope
macrumors G3
Another outstanding perspective from Peter Windsor if anyone is interested. More about the regulations than Max. Just went up.
I don't disagree with a lot of what Peter says there. F1 is in a very tricky place at the moment and is in danger of being seen as a bit of a joke category. It used to be the pinnacle of motorsport and physically demanding on the driver and I know that physical demand has been less since 2013, but these current regulations are purely about the car and when the driver uses a power button. It is too artificial.
The problem is deeper than F1 though, as the sport has always had a deep relationship with the automotive sector. Battery technology is the future that we will all be part of, and auto makers involved in F1 are there because of its R&D capabilities, testing ground and marketing reach. F1 could go in the direction 99% of fans want and go back to screaming V8/V10's and be all about going flat out, but that would be at the expense of the likes of Mercedes, Ford, Honda, and Audi. Ferrari would stay because they are Ferrari. With the exit of those companies brings a huge cash flow crisis and an expensive sport that very few privateers can afford to be part of.
I can sympathise with Max and his frustration. But I also respect the drivers who are frustrated and pushing for change. The drivers at the front aren't going to complain as long as they are getting Grand Prix wins under their belts. Lewis has maybe a couple of years left in the sport and has a full career of racing decent cars. The younger drivers have a bleaker future if what we have now is the foreseeable.
Glideslope
macrumors G3
I agree with most of your views. I think the most important item right now is dealing with the super clipping and closure speeds. In the future I’d like a 70/30 ICE/Battery configuration. Probably won’t be reality though.
Would have loved to be a fly on the wall at the dinner between Max and Stefano.
I think there is also the possibility that Max has no intention of retiring from F1 and is using his status within the sport to force a change of engine regs, as the BBC have questioned in an article this morning. There is talk the FIA are not happy with the state of the current racing and the fans/drivers reactions to it, but approaching a group of engine manufacturers and telling them those billions they have invested over the past 3 years developing their PU's might have waste, would not be an easy task. Wasn't there talk about changing the engine regs again in 2029 and Mercedes threw a fit and blocked it? I may have imagined that.