2026 Australian Grand Prix - Melbourne, March 06 - 08

[f1316]

They should have put the old chicane in Melbourne back in - would have solved a lot of issues.

[AR3-GP]

From McLaren race stream.


I think they do have freedom to make changes on the fly. Both Norris and Verstappen were given advice on changes to help in their fight.

Thank you for posting this, because is greatly illustrates the absurdity of these regulations. Drivers want to know how to best one another, so they get told to lift more, and to LICO somewhere else...What happened to driving the corners faster and better or being told the corner that he's slower? Have we gone completely mad?

This is why Verstappen is fully against the regulations. It's anti-racing. They are battery managers instead of race car drivers. This has absolutely nothing to do with the Formula 1 championship that Stirling Moss, Juan Manuel Fangio, Ayrton Senna, and Michael Schumacher raced in. It is simply Formula E on steroids. It is so shameful that anyone would defend it no matter if there are 1000 overtakes.

[IntrinsicVoid]

Remember we were making fun of Ferrari last year for their abnormal LiCo and now there are surely people from the same group that “praise” this ruleset.

[mzso]

From McLaren race stream.
https://i.postimg.cc/fbvT2q5q/Screensho ... -Laren.png

I think they do have freedom to make changes on the fly. Both Norris and Verstappen were given advice on changes to help in their fight.

This doesn't necessarily imply changing any settings. Only the driver saving energy.

The better question is. Is there really no way to use K braking when the battery is full? It doesn't sound right. That's a safety issue. Whoops, battery full, no rear brakes for you. (Due to wrong settings or abnormal driving, or whatever.)
It seems like something the FIA would have thought of.

[mzso]

Chris is right though. The only chance Ferrari would have had in this race was doing something different i.e going 1 stop and hoping Mercedes would need to come in for a second stop.

Merc had everything covered. Their pace was too strong. Just look at the laptimes the Mercs did on 40+ old tyres, without being tested. Surely they were managing pace even at that.

I very much disagree. Mercedes had too much pace, as you said. They shouldn't have given them free air and a pit-stop time advantage as well.
The drivers holding them back was their best chance, and forcing them to use up their tire. They did it with great success until the VSC. The long VSC gave made it easy by Mercedes going in first, which guaranteed that they would come out in front of them. It was a gift they rejected.

[FittingMechanics]

From McLaren race stream.
https://i.postimg.cc/fbvT2q5q/Screensho ... -Laren.png

I think they do have freedom to make changes on the fly. Both Norris and Verstappen were given advice on changes to help in their fight.

This doesn't necessarily imply changing any settings. Only the driver saving energy.

The better question is. Is there really no way to use K braking when the battery is full? It doesn't sound right. That's a safety issue. Whoops, battery full, no rear brakes for you. (Due to wrong settings or abnormal driving, or whatever.)
It seems like something the FIA would have thought of.

Moving Turn 1 LiCo to Turn 6 definitely shows they can adapt the recharging strategy on the fly. Probably the software adapts on their own, but the drivers obviously can play around with amount of lico - they are the ones that release the throttle.

I've replied because it was said it can't be done, at least LiCo can be changed. Do they have control over superclipping I don't know.

[F1Sara]

From McLaren race stream.
https://i.postimg.cc/fbvT2q5q/Screensho ... -Laren.png

I think they do have freedom to make changes on the fly. Both Norris and Verstappen were given advice on changes to help in their fight.

Thank you for posting this, because is greatly illustrates the absurdity of these regulations. Drivers want to know how to best one another, so they get told to lift more, and to LICO somewhere else...What happened to driving the corners faster and better or being told the corner that he's slower? Have we gone completely mad?

This is why Verstappen is fully against the regulations. It's anti-racing. They are battery managers instead of race car drivers. This has absolutely nothing to do with the Formula 1 championship that Stirling Moss, Juan Manuel Fangio, Ayrton Senna, and Michael Schumacher raced in. It is simply Formula E on steroids. It is so shameful that anyone would defend it no matter if there are 1000 overtakes.

My F1 hart died this morning.

[.poz]

[nitrotech]

This is why Verstappen is fully against the regulations.

He can retire if he doesn't like F1 anymore. (Just using his own words).

[avantman]

Awesome!

I want to lay alternative markers for immature cars at the beginning of the last regulation cycle. In 2022 Malbourne was the 3rd race, so the cars were a bit less green, but 1st race, 3rd race... same same enough.

Pole lap in 2022: 1:17:868 by Leclerc.
Fastest lap in the race: 1:20:268 by Leclerc.

In my opinion, Melbourne 2025 should be compared to Melbourne 2029 or at least 2028, after everyone has had 2 cycles of re-designing their cars including the successful tricks from the other teams.

And now complete:

Pole lap in 2022: 1:17:868 by Leclerc. ---> Pole lap in 2026: 1:18:518 by Russell.
Fastest lap in the race: 1:20:268 by Leclerc. --> Fastest lap in 2026: 1:22:091 by Verstappen.

As expected, more different in the race where they are unlikely to deploy 8 MJ in free air.

So 0.7 thenth in Q, 15 tenths slower inthe race.
But yes, together with the treade off of corner speed for straight line acceleration, they feel a tad slower to the (my) eye.

In qualifying they deploy 11 or 12 MJ. They start the lap topped up.

In Qualifying in Australia they were allowed to deploy 7mj. This is gonna be changed race by race by the FIA. Why? In order to improve the optics, I guess

[TeamKoolGreen]

The race was fine but the biggest factor for that was variability due to new PU and aero regs. And low reliability. That first VSC was timed perfectly. Everyone's tires were just starting to overheat and cars were starting to gap out. And the VSC put an end to it like a NASCAR competition yellow.

Max with newer tires couldn't pass Norris in the end. He approached Norris and then his tires started to give out. Vintage flat floor era stuff. I never heard the term "free air" more in all of last year than I did in this race.

[TeamKoolGreen]

If this car had the same PU and reliability as last year and it was a true chassis/aero to chassis/aero comparison , it wouldnt stand a chance against the GE car. The GE car did have the exact same PU as the 2021 car and the difference was huge.

[avantman]

I had fun watching that at least until the safety car pulled the cars apart. This is just another part of the F1 evolution. There is huge potential with active aero and electric power. This is the first season, hopefully it only gets better from here and teams converge. Maintain the lower weight smaller size cars and it could get really good. There certainly are problems with this formula but I think it is all just a part of the process and the next step (or half step if they make mid gen changes) will be better for it.

I think F1 needs more gradual evolution every 2 years rather than a completely new car every 5 or whatever.

Do you realize active aero was never put in place to improve potential? To improve racing? It is there only to cover the pathetic PU formula and improve optics. Active aero literally and directly hampers racing by weakening further the slipstream effect making proper, natural overtaking harder, not easier.

[bananapeel23]

Either that or they will be parking the car in front of the one they are overtaking in order to prevent them from utilizing their SOC advantage. Both are pretty interesting.

The power differences create 40-50km/h speed differentials. This is what Lando Norris was warning about after the GP. Drivers cannot be allowed to block or do anything silly because not only is there a 50km/h speed difference, but they also have less ability to react to a block because the wings open! Airplane crash in the making.

I meant parking it on the apex and/or corner exit to prevent the car in front from deploying, not on the straights. I thought that wad obvious.

[FittingMechanics]

And now complete:

Pole lap in 2022: 1:17:868 by Leclerc. ---> Pole lap in 2026: 1:18:518 by Russell.
Fastest lap in the race: 1:20:268 by Leclerc. --> Fastest lap in 2026: 1:22:091 by Verstappen.

As expected, more different in the race where they are unlikely to deploy 8 MJ in free air.

So 0.7 thenth in Q, 15 tenths slower inthe race.
But yes, together with the treade off of corner speed for straight line acceleration, they feel a tad slower to the (my) eye.

In qualifying they deploy 11 or 12 MJ. They start the lap topped up.

In Qualifying in Australia they were allowed to deploy 7mj. This is gonna be changed race by race by the FIA. Why? In order to improve the optics, I guess

They were allowed to recharge 7MJ. If they start on a full battery (4MJ) they can deploy 11 MJ.