2026 Australian Grand Prix - Melbourne, March 06 - 08

[Mattchu]

First race without silly DRS assisted overtakes. Yes, we still have the overtake mode/extra 0.5 MJ, hopefully that is just a decent tool in the armoury and drivers have to work a bit more to pass, rather than just fly by waving!

Looking forward to it...

[maxxer]

Ah first race of the season , makes me remember my first few years.

[.poz]

Battery state-of-charge (SOC) will not be displayed on the broadcast. Cars will appear randomly quick and randomly slow because of battery or maybe it's tires. It will be confusing. Nobody wins here. The solution is to get rid of the focus on battery charging if that won't be visible for the viewer.

I wonder how they’ll handle the onboard cameras pointing at the steering wheel, since the SOC is usually clearly visible on the display.

[chrisc90]

They bringing in mini sectors on the timing screen aren’t they?

Also shocked there’s no pics yet, given it’s 16hours to the first practice session

[AR3-GP]

The first myth of the 2026 regulations falls:



FOM are so good at propaganda.

[FrukostScones]

https://www.fia.com/system/files/decisi ... mation.pdf

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/f1-me ... /10802294/

[AR3-GP]

https://www.fia.com/system/files/decisi ... mation.pdf

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/f1-me ... /10802294/

Cutting the recovery just means the qualy lap will be a little bit slower. I wonder if they are anticipating the reduction in the excitement of the onboards in qualifying due to noticeable harvesting and super clipping.

[FrukostScones]

https://www.fia.com/system/files/decisi ... mation.pdf

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/f1-me ... /10802294/

Cutting the recovery just means the qualy lap will be a little bit slower. I wonder if they are anticipating the reduction in the excitement of the onboards in qualifying due to noticeable harvesting and super clipping.

they do this just to cover-up the discrepancy between Qualyharvesting and race harvesting. Lap Times discrepancy between Qualy and Race. As the possible real MJ-harvesting during a race lap is assumed to be much lower than 8MJ.
Or?

[AR3-GP]

https://www.fia.com/system/files/decisi ... mation.pdf

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/f1-me ... /10802294/

Cutting the recovery just means the qualy lap will be a little bit slower. I wonder if they are anticipating the reduction in the excitement of the onboards in qualifying due to noticeable harvesting and super clipping.

they do this just to cover-up the discrepancy between Qualyharvesting and race harvesting. Lap Times discrepancy as possible MJ during race is assumed to be much lower than 8MJ.
Or?

I think it will always be faster to recover the full 8MJ even if that means superclipping and what not.

[Badger]

T11-T13 is also an "exception zone", meaning they can do full engine harvesting there.

[FrukostScones]

Ah ok, I missed this thx.

[LM10]

The first myth of the 2026 regulations falls:



FOM are so good at propaganda.

I’ve already said that the drivers will only do what their engineers tell them is the best to do - probably even more than before. So nothing will change in this aspect.

[FittingMechanics]

I really feel that a bunch of these social media guys are intentionally being negative in order to generate traffic.

Bearman is talking about the recovery, Ferrari analyzed what is the optimal way to harvest and use energy, that is fully expected. Where the driver skill will come into play is how to go around that optimal setting in order to achieve unexpected overtakes and then use their skill to defend it. I am sure that Max will be a master of this with his strong defensive skills and aggressive overtaking ability.

We will see which other drivers end up on top. We may be in for some surprises. Piastri had some interesting unorthodox overtakes in unexpected places, maybe it suits him? It will be fascinating to watch.

[bananapeel23]

T11-T13 is also an "exception zone", meaning they can do full engine harvesting there.https://i.postimg.cc/v801GPwL/ausgp.png

I wonder how much that additional 0.5MJ with overtake will do? It’s what? 0.66 additional seconds of full deployment?

Will the cars even be recharging enough to be able to deploy 8.5 MJ?

[BorisTheBlade]

0,5 MJ is a joke - it would have made no difference to just leave out this bonus. The additional deployment freedom is what makes the difference - although especially in Melbourne just doing super-clipping less long than the other guy will be even more powerful.
I am also not really sure if recovering the maximum allowed energy will be the fastest way around the track. According to my armchair Excel simulation, they will need around 11 seconds of super-clipping, to reach 8 MJ (in addition to what they recover from braking and part-throttle).