2026 Pre-Season Testing

[FittingMechanics]

Sam Collins talking about Ferrari rear wing active aero flipping upside down, his explanation was that it reduces drag because it makes lift. I'm no aerodynamicist but I think the drag is not reduced if you run upside down.

This was apparently tested and removed.

Might let you run softer though?

Yeah, less squat on the straight (not sure it is a positive if you have rake). But maybe they can profile the rear of the wing to be less draggy when you rotate it 180 degrees. I was just saying that flying upside down doesn't mean you have less drag, you have same amount of drag just the force is in the different direction.

Quite fun to see all the ideas being tested.

[FittingMechanics]

Btw one of the downsides of these deployment options is that "theoretical best lap" is now completely useless. If you change deployment you can be much faster in one sector compared to the other.

I'm commenting because Norris on his C4 did a really bad S3, about 4 tenths worse than his best S3. No idea if it was because of different deployment or a mistake.

[FittingMechanics]

Looks like Norris and Verstappen are on a longer stint. Offset by few laps, similar tires (Norris on prototype C3, Verstappen on normal C3).

Laptimes are similar, but Norris faster by few tenths in S2. Could be deployment or more aero in corners. Someone should analyze.

EDIT: Not a full sim as they both pitted and are not doing live pitstops. But the stints look comparable.

[AR3-GP]

[FittingMechanics]

Huge differences in how they extract laptime.

[Emag]

Huge differences in how they extract laptime.

This was in the middle of a "long" run I think. It looks like McLaren just weren't deploying as much. They're slower in pretty much every straight. Lando's tires were shot towards the end of this stint though.

[AR3-GP]

This was in the middle of a "long" run I think. It looks like McLaren just weren't deploying as much. They're slower in pretty much every straight. Lando's tires were shot towards the end of this stint though.

Mclaren isn't going to have similar top speeds to Red Bull. They can't. They have more downforce for the corners and more drag. What you're seeing is how efficiency and inefficiency propagates. The efficient car spends less time on the straight, so it uses less battery, and it also is able to recover more energy because it isn't consumed by drag. The inefficient car spends more time on straight, uses more energy and recovers less because it is lost to drag.

[Emag]

This was in the middle of a "long" run I think. It looks like McLaren just weren't deploying as much. They're slower in pretty much every straight. Lando's tires were shot towards the end of this stint though.

Mclaren isn't going to have similar top speeds to Red Bull. They can't. They have more downforce for the corners and more drag. What you're seeing is how efficiency and inefficiency propagates. The efficient car spends less time on the straight, so it uses less battery, and it also is able to recover more energy because it isn't consumed by drag. The inefficient car spends more time on straight, uses more energy and recovers less because it is lost to drag.

It's quite a big difference though. This is RB6 levels of straight line speed deficiency. They either got it really right with the downforce levels, or got it really wrong and will never overtake a car on track this year.

I have seen some runs from Piastri where they don't have as big of a difference in straight line speed with the rest. And if they do, it's not consistent in every straight of the track, so that leads me to believe there's some deployment shenanigans going on.

[FittingMechanics]

This difference in speed on the main straight is due to speed at which they begin their harvest. Looks like McLaren does this at a slower speed than Red Bull but is then able to brake later and harder, maybe because they regenerated more by that point or because they have more downforce.

Minimum speeds are interesting difference, probably downforce level related. McLaren front wing is very cranked and likely generates significant downforce.

[organic]

All teams currently experiencing very high degradation

[AR3-GP]

The gap between the top teams and the midfield is on the scale of seconds a lap.

[AR3-GP]

Mercedes powered cars had terrible practice starts again (Russell, Norris). Mercedes PU seems the most dodgy getting away from the grid.

[Emag]

Mercedes powered cars had terrible practice starts again (Russell, Norris). Mercedes PU seems the most dodgy getting away from the grid.

Lando didn't even get away at all while Russell completely lit up the rear tires

Lewis came from 2 grid slots back and overtook him before they crossed the pit exit. Seems like they got work to do.

[FittingMechanics]

Should make for great racing, some variability in race starts would really help spice things up. Hopefully not as bad as these (someone not starting at all).

Russell spun his rears so that shouldn't be too hard to solve.

[AR3-GP]

Norris and Verstappen were clearly a step behind the long running that Leclerc did in yesterday’s day session.