2025/2026 Hybrid Powerunit speculation

[venkyhere]

Off topic, but still on topic.
A brilliant summary of the 2026 regulations from Lollipopman : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcrblPqT6sM
Comic relief of the kind that suits this forum to a T.

[gearboxtrouble]

Off topic, but still on topic.
A brilliant summary of the 2026 regulations from Lollipopman : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcrblPqT6sM
Comic relief of the kind that suits this forum to a T.

Lol. These guys do the best f1 journalism around atm.

[Madhouse]

Worst engine regs in history.
Has destroyed F1.

[bananapeel23]

If this race is as terrible a it looks like it will be based on quali, I say we're getting panicked regulation change discussions by the end of this triple header. Those will undeniably result in deployment limitations in the short term, more fuel by next year.

[JordanMugen]

If this race is as terrible a it looks like it will be based on quali, I say we're getting panicked regulation change discussions by the end of this triple header. Those will undeniably result in deployment limitations in the short term, more fuel by next year.

Those would be good band-aid fixes IMO.

Having cars that are straight line monsters in the initial part of acceleration really does very little for "the show", even if it is road-relevant to EVs that also behave like that. It seems, by comparison, that superclipping and drivers not pushing in high-speed corners seems (on average) to bother fans (and drivers?) much, much more.

Reason they are allowing these things is because over the course of the lap, it is faster to allow some recharging via clipping and coasting because the gains from use of energy at corner exit are that much larger.

The thing that they may have forgotten (as engineers) is that fans and drivers don't care about the laptime in itself, they care about the sensation of pushing and cars looking fast in corners. If fans and drivers wanted timing scores dominated by straight-line performance, then they would be drag racing enthusiasts!

The solution to the problems with this regulation set without making the cars horribly slow is one of:

Surely only cornering performance makes a difference to spectacle? Straight line performance, arguably, makes very little difference to spectacle. The decision to design the regulations based on overall laptimes and not cornering speed seems to have been misguided.

The 2026 seem slow in corners (it's nice they slide and can be pushed), that they are getting laptime back on the straights doesn't make them seem faster. It is only seen on the stopwatch. So they could be reduced to 700hp racing cars (550hp ICE + 150hp ERS) without looking visibly slower on track (only being slower in terms of laptime) and then behave more like a "normal" ICE racing car.

Even a minor ~5% fuel flow increase would need some changes to be made to ancillaries, engine management and the fuel system itself. Thats not feasible mid season. Best option for 26 would be to limit peak deployment to a range between 200 and 350 KW depending on the circuit to minimize superclipping and lico. For 27 they could go to a 70-30 split with a ~750 hp ICE and a ~300 hp MGU-K which should be doable by increasing the fuel flow and energy density cap.

Excellent ideas!

[michl420]

On the onbards with telemetry from the mercedes can be seen the cars drive 300 kmh ICE only. Everything above need the MGUK. Mercedes did NO lift and cost in Qualy, only superclipping.

[bananapeel23]

The solution to the problems with this regulation set without making the cars horribly slow is one of:

Surely only cornering performance makes a difference to spectacle? Straight line performance, arguably, makes very little difference to spectacle. The decision to design the regulations based on overall laptimes and not cornering speed seems to have been misguided.

The 2026 seem slow in corners (it's nice they slide and can be pushed), that they are getting laptime back on the straights doesn't make them seem faster. It is only seen on the stopwatch. So they could be reduced to 700hp racing cars (550hp ICE + 150hp ERS) without looking visibly slower on track (only being slower in terms of laptime) and then behave more like a "normal" ICE racing car.

Well yes, cornering performance is clearly more important, but obviously we as fans would prefer it if the cars were faster than F2. The other easy alternative to stop cars from super clipping through corners and lifting and coasting is to ban both.

If we were to ban super clipping and LiCo, the cars would be horrifically slow, since they would be turbo lagging out of slow corners with almost no electrical power at all available to compensate for it. That is not a good option compared to slowing the cars down slightly with decreased deployment rates, which would make the tradeoffs that encourage excessive LiCo and super clipping disappear.

Realistically super clipping is a good thing for the viewer, but only in certain cases. The ideal use cases for super clipping are places like Monza turns 1-2, the Monaco hairpin, turns 1-2 in Shanghai, the Suzuka hairpin, the pitlane etc. In other words super clipping is good when it is being used in places where you would otherwise be off-throttle or at a low but relatively constant speed, or where you would be gradually slowing down regardless.

In an ideal world the MGU-K would be just a tiny bit short of powerful enough that super clipping at the end of the straight in order to rocket out of the following corner isn’t worth it. That would probably cost a second or two of lap time for now, but that could be made up for next year with more fuel flow to bring the power back up, which would also enable them to bring back a little bit more of the MGU-K power.

[gearboxtrouble]

You can set the MGU-K deployment power mathematically per circuit to minimize superclipping and lico. Just work backwards from available battery capacity and use the full throttle percentage to calculate the maximum possible deployment on a per race basis.

[MJL]

Hi everyone! I've been following F1 since 2017 and one thing that stands out for me this year is how difficult it may be to intuitively predict deployment behaviour from track to track. Because of that I started building a simplified lap optimisation model to explore different scenarios.

The idea is not to reproduce a full vehicle model but to capture some of the key constraints:

- MGU-K power limits
- harvesting during braking phases
- battery SOC window
- simplified longitudinal vehicle dynamics
- basic fuel flow limits

The simulation runs as a function of distance around the lap and optimises harvesting vs deployment to minimise lap time while respecting the energy constraints.

I made a short visualisation of one simulated lap here, with Leclerc's pre-season testing lap as a reference.
https://x.com/m_lubieniecki/status/2030334607640449268

Now I am using the data from Australia to calibrate the car model. Next I’m planning to run the same setup on Monza, especially to predict differences between 2025 and 2026.

Out of curiosity - which other scenarios do you think would be interesting to test? Lower MGU-K deployment limits? Different tracks? Do you think such a tool is valuable?

Thanks!

[venkyhere]

The energy density of the battery tech chosen is such, that weight penalty will overwhelm the gains of more energy availability, beyond a threshold charge capacity. Hence these 'max charge use per lap' limitations come into force. If the battery tech chosen was a higher-grade one with more energy:weight density, atleast the qualifying lap could have been spared the 'recharge handicap'. Race lap will suffer anyway, whatever be the battery tech or storage limit.

Whichever way we cut it, all 'solutions'/'corrections' will boil down to a simple metric :
peak ICE power : peak electric power ratio.
80:20 from the past decade still kept it exciting, taking it to 50:50 has taken the sting out of it.

[mzso]

If this race is as terrible a it looks like it will be based on quali, I say we're getting panicked regulation change discussions by the end of this triple header. Those will undeniably result in deployment limitations in the short term, more fuel by next year.

Like that ever happened, or will ever happen.

Surely only cornering performance makes a difference to spectacle? Straight line performance, arguably, makes very little difference to spectacle. The decision to design the regulations based on overall laptimes and not cornering speed seems to have been misguided.

Cars racing each other is the majority of spectacle. Most can't see, nor care about the difference of straight line speed or cornering speeds (unless it gets extremely slower). These are distant factors behind on-track action.

[Hoffman900]

If this race is as terrible a it looks like it will be based on quali, I say we're getting panicked regulation change discussions by the end of this triple header. Those will undeniably result in deployment limitations in the short term, more fuel by next year.

Like that ever happened, or will ever happen.

Surely only cornering performance makes a difference to spectacle? Straight line performance, arguably, makes very little difference to spectacle. The decision to design the regulations based on overall laptimes and not cornering speed seems to have been misguided.

Cars racing each other is the majority of spectacle. Most can't see, nor care about the difference of straight line speed or cornering speeds (unless it gets extremely slower). These are distant factors behind on-track action.

If racing was the spectacle, F1 wouldn’t even be in the top two dozen of motorsports people watched.

That said, F1 has relied on “we don’t gave good racing, but look how fast the cars are going!” for most of its life. Now it has neither.

[vormelifriik]

Tomorrow we will find out what the new regs will do to racing.

Today we discovered that qualifying now looks really boring, there's no spectacle anymore.

I enjoyed F2 and F3 races much more, properly pushing in every corner, as should F1, especially in quali Q3!

Only FIA pivot after China can save us https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/after ... /10803048/

Ahead of the weekend I enjoyed some of the highlights from 2008, 2004, 2009, 2011 era from F1 youtube channel and it just made me a little sad inside to see what the sport has become today, so so so very far from flat out racing it used to be.

[mzso]

If this race is as terrible a it looks like it will be based on quali, I say we're getting panicked regulation change discussions by the end of this triple header. Those will undeniably result in deployment limitations in the short term, more fuel by next year.

Like that ever happened, or will ever happen.

Surely only cornering performance makes a difference to spectacle? Straight line performance, arguably, makes very little difference to spectacle. The decision to design the regulations based on overall laptimes and not cornering speed seems to have been misguided.

Cars racing each other is the majority of spectacle. Most can't see, nor care about the difference of straight line speed or cornering speeds (unless it gets extremely slower). These are distant factors behind on-track action.

If racing was the spectacle, F1 wouldn’t even be in the top two dozen of motorsports people watched.

That said, F1 has relied on “we don’t gave good racing, but look how fast the cars are going!” for most of its life. Now it has neither.

F1 mainly relies on, big money, big history and big PR to stay successful.

Ahead of the weekend I enjoyed some of the highlights from 2008, 2004, 2009, 2011 era from F1 youtube channel and it just made me a little sad inside to see what the sport has become today, so so so very far from flat out racing it used to be.

So mostly from the era just before the introduction of DRS that sucked so much they had to come up with an overtaking aid.

[jacme22]

Maybe stupid questions for the experts, how feasable would it be to add a front axle a smaller mguk/electric generator for next year?