2026 Australian Grand Prix - Melbourne, March 06 - 08

[upsidedowntoast]

Everyone was freaking out that it was going to be another 2014 after qualy and that obviously was not the case when race day came. Qualy was an outlier where all of Merc's competitors ran into bad luck here and there: Ferrari with the deployment software, Max with the crash. The real gap would have been 0.2-0.3s which is perfectly reasonable and closable at different circuits and with in-season development. Even Merc themselves admitted they were "surprised" during qualy and after the main race said "yeah this competitiveness and race start advantage from Ferrari was closer to what we expected".

M8 don't fall with what Toto and his boys say, they have huge engine advantage but we can catch up a bit for sure.

The telemetry shows that Ferrari was faster in basically all the corners. Aero-wise Ferrari is a 10/10 and their PU is maybe a 9/10 while Merc is a 10/10 PU with a 9/10 chassis. We'll see how midseason upgrades go and how the post-June CR tests affect Merc (though my conspiracy theory is that the compression ratio is actually a giant red herring and their PU advantage is something else).

[Artur Craft]

These regs are not going anywhere. This is what it's all about:

https://i.postimg.cc/RCLDJVkr/image.png

Was there any truly memorable overtakes?

The "engineering/racing nerd" type fanbase is slowly dwindling, while the "big-mac-with-large-coke" type fanbase is growing massively, helped by DTS. They want to dumb it down as a 'showman sport' rather than a sport of tech/skill, since that's the way to increase the subscription base, ticket sales and general public popularity.
Remember the owner's manual that came with old cars ? They had instructions on how to adjust the carburettor jets, while a modern car's owner's manual comes with instructions not to drink the engine oil / coolant.
Same trend. We shouldn't be surprised.

Great analysis!
F1 is like Mario Kart now - perfect for this "new" generation!
Maybe we see "smart steering" and "auto-accelarate" as well as gold tyres, anti-gravity, boost very soon!
Ps.: there is already boost...

I fully agree with venkyhere and Lucafo, great posts there. We need the mods to create a poll to evaluate this. As soon as I saw those cringeworthy artifical position swapping, I knew there would be plenty of people elated by it. Please, create a "rate the GP" thread.

[Schumix]

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.

Rest assured, dear F1 fan, you're not alone: ​​in fact, thousands of us are heartbroken by the spectacle we're being offered, and we're wondering if F1 2026 is truly the F1 that has captivated us for decades! Personally, I'm lost. How is it that the FIA ​​doesn't listen to the drivers who are, after all, in charge of creating the show we love? Leclerc said that when he was in the lead, he was unable to think about the race as a whole, so busy was he managing the LiCo and the clipping zones—in short, managing his energy deployment—instead of thinking about which corner would give him an opening to extend his lead over Russell. It's sad! F1 these days has lost its DNA. It has mutated into another discipline (Verstappen calls it Formula E on steroids). It looks like F1, it's kept the F1 name, but it's no longer F1! I remember the political problems that shook F1 in 2009. What will happen if drivers, engineers, managers, etc., decide to revive this old idea of ​​creating a parallel championship of "real" F1? I dream about it...

[AR3-GP]

Regulations aside, I'm just trying to think more technically about what we could see in China. Clipping aside, it could allow for more traditional overtaking? The back straight is so long that you might be able to wait for the slipstream to work, instead of relying on boost mode or overtake mode. So use the slipstream on the back straight, and then use the boost mode on the front straight to push beyond 1 second.

If that doesn't work, then it will really be a lot of yo-yo-ing between the back straight and the front straight.

Perhaps this yo-yo thing is actually what keeps Mercedes from running away with it. They are going to waste a LOT of time trying to get the slower cars off their tail due to their bad starts and the regulations which are designed to make the cars yo-yo past one another.

[avantman]

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.

Rest assured, dear F1 fan, you're not alone: ​​in fact, thousands of us are heartbroken by the spectacle we're being offered, and we're wondering if F1 2026 is truly the F1 that has captivated us for decades! Personally, I'm lost. How is it that the FIA ​​doesn't listen to the drivers who are, after all, in charge of creating the show we love? Leclerc said that when he was in the lead, he was unable to think about the race as a whole, so busy was he managing the LiCo and the clipping zones—in short, managing his energy deployment—instead of thinking about which corner would give him an opening to extend his lead over Russell. It's sad! F1 these days has lost its DNA. It has mutated into another discipline (Verstappen calls it Formula E on steroids). It looks like F1, it's kept the F1 name, but it's no longer F1! I remember the political problems that shook F1 in 2009. What will happen if drivers, engineers, managers, etc., decide to revive this old idea of ​​creating a parallel championship of "real" F1? I dream about it...

Completely agree I would add, not only that is not F1 anymore that’s not motor racing. That’s completely different type of racing, like Formula E which has no right to be called Motorsport, because it is not.
This is exactly sort of racing we couldn’t see on Sky f1, official global broadcaster the past few years watching their intros. The direction in which all this was going was clear and they weren’t even trying to hide it from us. It was there for everybody to see. This looks almost like they’ve been doing mental programming or how you call it to us, so we spectators would accept this on subconscious level as new norm.

Now we have same arcade video game type of racing. Of course it is racing, it is competition still just nothing to do with Motorsport.

[slinger]

It is fast and it is "racing", BUT there is no sizzle. No using that extra centimeter before the wall or 4 wheel drifting around the corner or I'll brake after you... It's like watching a Scalectrix race.

[Sieper]

It is, at this moment, completely ridiculous. overtaking is nothing like it used to be.

[FittingMechanics]

I watched the start replay right now and what is fascinating is that Lindblad had a really bad start - he lost a lot of space compared to Hamilton and Norris. But with how condensed they were they lost much more time navigating T1. In fact Haas in 13th position was alongside Lindblad before braking.

Hamilton had the best start, much better than Leclerc. Norris had a good start as well but was unlucky with positioning.
Hadjar started better than Mercedes guys but it wasn't anything spectacular in the second phase.

Colapinto with a master save to avoid a big crash.

[AR3-GP]

I watched the start replay right now and what is fascinating is that Lindblad had a really bad start - he lost a lot of space compared to Hamilton and Norris. But with how condensed they were they lost much more time navigating T1. In fact Haas in 13th position was alongside Lindblad before braking.

Hamilton had the best start, much better than Leclerc. Norris had a good start as well but was unlucky with positioning.
Hadjar started better than Mercedes guys but it wasn't anything spectacular in the second phase.

Colapinto with a master save to avoid a big crash.

The start in Melbourne was an illusion, unfortunately. Exciting, but the reason for it is that many of the cars had improper battery levels because teams made mistakes in the software charging the battery on the formation lap. It's very unlikely that it will be a consistent feature of the season. In fact, I would expect the starts to be more routine and homogeneous in China now that teams understand the mistakes that were made.

Hadjar: He had best start, but 2nd phase was bad because his battery wasn't topped up on formation lap-> team error
Russell: he had a bad start, and also ran out of battery -> 1st phase is Merc PU idiosyncrasies, 2nd phase is team error.

[Seanspeed]

Everyone was freaking out that it was going to be another 2014 after qualy and that obviously was not the case when race day came. Qualy was an outlier where all of Merc's competitors ran into bad luck here and there: Ferrari with the deployment software, Max with the crash. The real gap would have been 0.2-0.3s which is perfectly reasonable and closable at different circuits and with in-season development. Even Merc themselves admitted they were "surprised" during qualy and after the main race said "yeah this competitiveness and race start advantage from Ferrari was closer to what we expected".

I dont believe this. The fact that the Ferraris on much fresher tires still couldn't eat into the Mercs that were just cruising around unchallenged tells me that Merc pace advantage is real, and not some coincidence of qualifying where RB/Ferrari are actually much closer.

[bluechris]

Everyone was freaking out that it was going to be another 2014 after qualy and that obviously was not the case when race day came. Qualy was an outlier where all of Merc's competitors ran into bad luck here and there: Ferrari with the deployment software, Max with the crash. The real gap would have been 0.2-0.3s which is perfectly reasonable and closable at different circuits and with in-season development. Even Merc themselves admitted they were "surprised" during qualy and after the main race said "yeah this competitiveness and race start advantage from Ferrari was closer to what we expected".

I dont believe this. The fact that the Ferraris on much fresher tires still couldn't eat into the Mercs that were just cruising around unchallenged tells me that Merc pace advantage is real, and not some coincidence of qualifying where RB/Ferrari are actually much closer.

Not only this but we havent saw yet their fully advantage, simply because they went in front and then just cruising keeping 15 sec from Ferrari in all this laps.
I am afraid this will be the trend at least for the upcoming races. They will let the others near them just to show everywhere that they are not so fast that we think they are... mark my words. Toto must speak to Antonelli also to do the team game... he did 22.4 in the final or penultimate lap... they dont want that....

[Seanspeed]

Not only this but we havent saw yet their fully advantage, simply because they went in front and then just cruising keeping 15 sec from Ferrari in all this laps.
I am afraid this will be the trend at least for the upcoming races. They will let the others near them just to show everywhere that they are not so fast that we think they are... mark my words. Toto must speak to Antonelli also to do the team game... he did 22.4 in the final or penultimate lap... they dont want that....

Almost like we've seen this all before. lol

[bluechris]

Not only this but we havent saw yet their fully advantage, simply because they went in front and then just cruising keeping 15 sec from Ferrari in all this laps.
I am afraid this will be the trend at least for the upcoming races. They will let the others near them just to show everywhere that they are not so fast that we think they are... mark my words. Toto must speak to Antonelli also to do the team game... he did 22.4 in the final or penultimate lap... they dont want that....

Almost like we've seen this all before. lol

Yeah, straight from Toto book. The only hope is that if they are behind, the dirty air seems to disturb them more than if Ferrari is behind.

[F1Sara]

My F1 hart died this morning.

Rest assured, dear F1 fan, you're not alone: ​​in fact, thousands of us are heartbroken by the spectacle we're being offered, and we're wondering if F1 2026 is truly the F1 that has captivated us for decades! Personally, I'm lost. How is it that the FIA ​​doesn't listen to the drivers who are, after all, in charge of creating the show we love? Leclerc said that when he was in the lead, he was unable to think about the race as a whole, so busy was he managing the LiCo and the clipping zones—in short, managing his energy deployment—instead of thinking about which corner would give him an opening to extend his lead over Russell. It's sad! F1 these days has lost its DNA. It has mutated into another discipline (Verstappen calls it Formula E on steroids). It looks like F1, it's kept the F1 name, but it's no longer F1! I remember the political problems that shook F1 in 2009. What will happen if drivers, engineers, managers, etc., decide to revive this old idea of ​​creating a parallel championship of "real" F1? I dream about it...

Completely agree I would add, not only that is not F1 anymore that’s not motor racing. That’s completely different type of racing, like Formula E which has no right to be called Motorsport, because it is not.
This is exactly sort of racing we couldn’t see on Sky f1, official global broadcaster the past few years watching their intros. The direction in which all this was going was clear and they weren’t even trying to hide it from us. It was there for everybody to see. This looks almost like they’ve been doing mental programming or how you call it to us, so we spectators would accept this on subconscious level as new norm.

Now we have same arcade video game type of racing. Of course it is racing, it is competition still just nothing to do with Motorsport.

At least we get some PROPER racing at the Nordschleife this spring.
Max is joining.

https://www.the-race.com/endurance/vers ... -mercedes/
Still a bit lost after what I saw yesterday.
Hope they are going to make some changes. So the absolute magic of F1 will be a little bit back.
For now going to watch some old seasons back.

[Artur Craft]

Everyone was freaking out that it was going to be another 2014 after qualy and that obviously was not the case when race day came. Qualy was an outlier where all of Merc's competitors ran into bad luck here and there: Ferrari with the deployment software, Max with the crash. The real gap would have been 0.2-0.3s which is perfectly reasonable and closable at different circuits and with in-season development. Even Merc themselves admitted they were "surprised" during qualy and after the main race said "yeah this competitiveness and race start advantage from Ferrari was closer to what we expected".

I dont believe this. The fact that the Ferraris on much fresher tires still couldn't eat into the Mercs that were just cruising around unchallenged tells me that Merc pace advantage is real, and not some coincidence of qualifying where RB/Ferrari are actually much closer.

Not only this but we havent saw yet their fully advantage, simply because they went in front and then just cruising keeping 15 sec from Ferrari in all this laps.
I am afraid this will be the trend at least for the upcoming races. They will let the others near them just to show everywhere that they are not so fast that we think they are... mark my words. Toto must speak to Antonelli also to do the team game... he did 22.4 in the final or penultimate lap... they dont want that....

Damn right. Mercedes´ pace is ominous. They are even hiding their full potential just like 2014. Despite cruising around, Leclerc was just falling further behind on much fresher tires. Unreal to read that some people believe that if Ferrari had pitted under VSC they would have fought Russell and Antonelli...