I should have said "no mechanism", not "no reason". How should you drive around the person in front of you when you are not faster? What would be the mechanism? telekinesis?SealTheRealDeal wrote: ↑02 Feb 2026, 23:37What? Passing is how you gain positions, and thereby increase your points. Cars with similar pace have every reason to try passing eachother.
Of course they surgar coated it a bit in the end. But it is blatantly obvious what they were saying. Shift of balance and lose a lot of load is the operative words here.organic wrote: ↑02 Feb 2026, 20:43Full Ocon quoteTeamKoolGreen wrote: ↑02 Feb 2026, 20:23Anyway , some receipts are in about how these cars follow. And this was at shakedown speed
From the Race https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/what ... elations/
Haas driver Ollie Bearman said: "It was a bit more challenging to follow. It picked up quite a big shift in balance compared to clean air, which seemed a bit more so than the previous generation of cars."
Team-mate Ocon said: "You seem to lose quite a lot of front load, a bit more maybe than before."
However George Russell saidI've been following a few cars. You seem to lose quite a lot of front load, a bit more maybe than before. But we need to see. And the overtake, yes, I played with it. I don't want to give too early conclusions on how it's going to be, because obviously it needs to be adjusted, optimised, etc, for that to work in a perfect way. But so far it looks to be difficult to pass - that's my first first thought about it. But I hope it's going to get on the easier side."Following definitely does seem easier, especially in the high-speed corners," he said. "It's firstly because you have less downforce, and you're going through the corners slower, so there is naturally less wake."
There are many ways to be situationally faster than the car ahead despite a tight field spread on average. There are many spec series with tons of passing. Returning to the example of 2021, the driver with the most overtakes that year was Seb, how can that be if field spread was the main factor in overtaking and the AMR21 was towards the back of that field spread?AR3-GP wrote: ↑02 Feb 2026, 23:42I should have said "no mechanism", not "no reason". How should you drive around the person in front of you when you are not faster? What would be the mechanism? telekinesis?SealTheRealDeal wrote: ↑02 Feb 2026, 23:37What? Passing is how you gain positions, and thereby increase your points. Cars with similar pace have every reason to try passing eachother.
ascinating insight from @GeorgeRussell63 Today on how the 2026 F1 cars have to be driven: "It's definitely challenging for the drivers, and you have instances when you go around the corners faster, you're spending more energy, and you're harvesting less. So you end up over the course of a lap having less energy to spend. So you may gain a few tenths into corners, but you may lose a couple of tenths in the straight. That takes a little bit of time just to get your head around it.
I really doubt there could be a situation where that's the case, unless you're defending from someone and doing a Checo Perez AD 21 type of thing. Any other situation, you'd want to take the corners as fast as your car can do itAR3-GP wrote: ↑03 Feb 2026, 01:33ascinating insight from @GeorgeRussell63 Today on how the 2026 F1 cars have to be driven: "It's definitely challenging for the drivers, and you have instances when you go around the corners faster, you're spending more energy, and you're harvesting less. So you end up over the course of a lap having less energy to spend. So you may gain a few tenths into corners, but you may lose a couple of tenths in the straight. That takes a little bit of time just to get your head around it.
It's a straight line speed Formula. It's no longer important to be quick in the corners. It's just important to recharge the battery so you don't lose out on the straights where even more lap time is lost from having a depleted battery. Exactly as Russell said.johnnycesup wrote: ↑03 Feb 2026, 01:39I really doubt there could be a situation where that's the case, unless you're defending from someone and doing a Checo Perez AD 21 type of thing. Any other situation, you'd want to take the corners as fast as your car can do itAR3-GP wrote: ↑03 Feb 2026, 01:33ascinating insight from @GeorgeRussell63 Today on how the 2026 F1 cars have to be driven: "It's definitely challenging for the drivers, and you have instances when you go around the corners faster, you're spending more energy, and you're harvesting less. So you end up over the course of a lap having less energy to spend. So you may gain a few tenths into corners, but you may lose a couple of tenths in the straight. That takes a little bit of time just to get your head around it.
It's faster for the same battery recharge to spend an extra second doing a full recharge against the ICE in the straight (which would work similarly to lift and coast since the ICE is stronger than the MGUK) before the braking point and take the corners as usual, than to keep pushing that extra second and brake for a little longer and take the corner slower. One reason is that if you take a corner slower you have to spend energy to accelerate from a lower starting speed, alongside all the time you lost in the corner itself.AR3-GP wrote: ↑03 Feb 2026, 01:45It's a straight line speed Formula. It's no longer important to be quick in the corners. It's just important to recharge the battery so you don't lose out on the straights where even more lap time is lost from having a depleted battery. Exactly as Russell said.johnnycesup wrote: ↑03 Feb 2026, 01:39I really doubt there could be a situation where that's the case, unless you're defending from someone and doing a Checo Perez AD 21 type of thing. Any other situation, you'd want to take the corners as fast as your car can do it
This is such a fundamental paradigm shift. I'm baffled by how we got to this point. Horner was the only one who cared about the sport when he wanted them to reduce the electric output.
