Are 2026 F1 regulations broken? How to fix them?

[bananapeel23]

for the race, I wouldn't touch a thing.
but for the quali, I agree it would be good to see more the cars pushed to their limits.
that would also probably mix up the order a bit more before the race, bringing some more battles.

Honestly they should consider giving the drivers quali-only batteries. They all have a decent amount of capacity headroom built in to better handle the many thousands fof power cycles expected of them.

If the drivers could get an additional battery or two every season, specifically for quali, I’m guessing they could probably bump nominal capacity up to 5 MJ without changing any hardware, albeit at the cost of battery lifespan. It would allow them to have the same amount of deployment for quali and the race, since the driver would start with 1MJ extra, while the driver would have to harvest 1 MJ less (and thus push more).

This would obviously never happen, but it would be cool.

[hollus]

Wow, cut the politics guys. As usual and you know why.
It took one "faux naive" baiting post to trigger, half an hour later, a post mixing physics, engineering and politics to be followed 40 minutes later by another post that went a bit sport and lot POLITICS!
The posts are gone, in case you are wondering what-where they are. The posters know who they are.

Once it turns to politics, too many users cannot respect opposite opinions, or even the people posting them. And it escalates THAT quickly.
Hence, politics off.

Repeated offenders ocassionally get a forum warning, so please don't go there.

[JordanMugen]

But then worth remembering periodically slowing the cars down is also a thing. This new formula being 2 seconds ish a lap slower than the last one would have been a successful outcome, without all the clipping / recovery problems.

Even 6s/lap slower would be OK.

The lap time doesn't matter, targeting lap time in the 2026 regulation design makes no sense -- it is corner speed that is visible to fans. Fans generally don't seem to mind the low downforce concept of the 2026 cars too badly, so that's fine, making the time back on straights is not necessary at all.

A reduction to max. 200-250 kW electrical DC power and max. 4-5 MJ/lap harvesting seem the logical fixes to the regulations.

The FIA already have the authority in the rules to limit qualifying to 5 MJ/lap, so they can implement that in four weeks and for all subsequent qualifyings.

Well the FIA made it subject to Article B7.2 -- why on Earth didn't the FIA give themselves the authority to change MJ/lap and electrical power at will. Anyhow, B7.2 just mandates four weeks notice.

B7.2 also gives the option to reduce electrical power but "only if deemed necessary by the FIA for the sole purpose of
ensuring the maximum speed of the Car remains compatible with the design and construction of the relevant circuit"...

Surely the FIA can just abuse this provision and reduce electrical power anyway?

(Why did they give themselves restrictions when they could have easily anticipated that some drivers and some pundits would want to "fix" the rules quite promptly to restore normal ICE racing car behaviour‽)

[stewie325]

If we thought DRS created artifical "push-to-pass" overtakes , then Overtake Mode is actually much worse.

The advantage it creates seems incredibly overpowered when the car in front is doing Lico or getting clipping.

They need to significantly reduce the power advantage and duration of Overtake Mode.

The 2009-style KERS at least had some transparency of how it affects performance - they should implement that and give the driver much more control instead of relying on automated deployment maps.

[Okyo]

What's actually technically stopping them from giving full control of the energy deployment to the drivers? Is it mainly due to the recharging process being so complex?

I feel that a lot of current issues stem from the search for optimizing recharge and deployment and the box the drivers are put in because of it. Simplifying it to a push of a button when a driver wants the deployment to happen and simplifying the recharge zones, that are same for everyone to avoid large speed differences to a few specific locations on track would at least bring back the feeling of drivers having full control of how they want the lap to go, where they want to push.

[vorticism]

I have a feeling this formula might become known as the participation-trophy formula. Everyone gets their 15 minutes of podium. Please clap for the guy whose PU software coin most recently landed heads up.

Most of this is down to forcing an inefficient form of energy storage into the sport, because OEMs. For years I suggested here and elsewhere that F1 might benefit from banning OEMs owning or primary-sponsoring teams. The road-relevance ruse is now coming to a head with the current “gotta have low energy density” Mickey Mouse regs. Garage teams are the truer soul of the sport. McLaren, Williams, Sauber, the many others, and the one who took it to the next level: Red Bull Racing (before the coup).

If specialist OEMs can remain solely as sports/supercar manufactures, and not insist on becoming SUV and EV manufacturers, then they could be considered more like a garage team. McLaren f.e. may be more trustworthy in this regard than Ferrari, as they’re strictly making F1-adjacent track cars for the road (so far). Ferrari are trying to become a Porsche or a Jaguar--sedans, SUVs, EVs, with some sports cars on the side. Also, on the gov/regulatory side of things, there needs to be better direction on distinguishing between mass and niche markets. The road-relevance ploy keeps leading back to track-inferior tech like Li-ion batteries being shoehorned into the regulations.

As it relates, it’s remarkable what’s happened to wikipedia on this topic. It used to be that shills & activists were relegated to articles about politics and psuedosciences like social ‘science,’ as you’d expect. They’re leaking out of their natural habitats though, due to entitlement ideologies which demand that they have access to all things and all people regardless of relevance and consent. For ten years or more within the Energy Density article there was a nice clean comparison list that went from deuterium and uranium down to capacitors and springs. Now it’s as carefully-curated as the 2026 Iran War article. The list is now broken into separate sections couched between paragraphs of “well, akshually...” Yet the dufus editors can’t fully subvert the sciences, as the now balkanized list still quantifies both idolized forms of energy storage and demonized forms of energy storage with... you guessed it, MJs per L, and MJs per kg. But never compare them directly, dear citizen. Oh, no. Mustn’t. Numbers are problematic, you see. They are not objective, they are subjective and can hurt feelings... and profits.

[SB15]

Simple 70/30 split. 50% less battery deployment and recharge to allow for more reliability on the batteries.

[Slahinki]

If we thought DRS created artifical "push-to-pass" overtakes , then Overtake Mode is actually much worse.

The advantage it creates seems incredibly overpowered when the car in front is doing Lico or getting clipping.

They need to significantly reduce the power advantage and duration of Overtake Mode.

The 2009-style KERS at least had some transparency of how it affects performance - they should implement that and give the driver much more control instead of relying on automated deployment maps.

The worst thing is that despite how incredibly broken Overtake mode is, we still got DRS-like "trains" in China. The entire PU regulation needs to be scrapped.

[bananapeel23]

If specialist OEMs can remain solely as sports/supercar manufactures, and not insist on becoming SUV and EV manufacturers, then they could be considered more like a garage team. McLaren f.e. may be more trustworthy in this regard than Ferrari, as they’re strictly making F1-adjacent track cars for the road (so far). Ferrari are trying to become a Porsche or a Jaguar--sedans, SUVs, EVs, with some sports cars on the side. Also, on the gov/regulatory side of things, there needs to be better direction on distinguishing between mass and niche markets. The road-relevance ploy keeps leading back to track-inferior tech like Li-ion batteries being shoehorned into the regulations.

Stop it with the unhinged, conspiratorial rants.

With that said Ferrari has always been open to more fun regs along with Red Bull. It’s usually Mercedes, Toyota, BMW and other large car manufacturers that push for more sustainable or road-relevant engine formulas.

[FittingMechanics]

If we thought DRS created artifical "push-to-pass" overtakes , then Overtake Mode is actually much worse.

The advantage it creates seems incredibly overpowered when the car in front is doing Lico or getting clipping.

They need to significantly reduce the power advantage and duration of Overtake Mode.

The 2009-style KERS at least had some transparency of how it affects performance - they should implement that and give the driver much more control instead of relying on automated deployment maps.

Overtake mode is not overpowered.

Majority of these "overpowered" overtakes did not happen because of Overtake mode. I wouldn't be surprised if the allowance of 0.5 MJ extra is not even used as it is not free (unlike DRS). To get 0.5 MJ you need to harvest it. Are we even sure the drivers are harvesting allowed maximum during the race and then that they are able to harvest 0.5 MJ more in a way that is laptime efficient?

Big overpowered overtakes happen because the cars choose to deploy their energy in different spots. If you are car ahead and you deploy energy to defend at end of main straight, when you get to a second straight you will have less energy than the car behind you. And then these big overpowered moves happen. Not because of overtake mode but because you defended by using energy before, this can happen because the driver behind you dummied you to use boost or for various other reasons.

If Overtake mode was overpowered then Mercedes would have much easier time overtaking and running away from Ferrari.

[vorticism]

Others have mentioned the opaqueness of the recharge & SoC telemetry. Other drivers and teams can't see it. This is arbitrary curation. It would be like having had a NOS tank of mysterious capacity back in a pure ICE era. "Will he use it? Won't he? Ooo!!!" Gimmicky.

What's actually technically stopping them from giving full control of the energy deployment to the drivers? Is it mainly due to the recharging process being so complex?

I feel that a lot of current issues stem from the search for optimizing recharge and deployment and the box the drivers are put in because of it. Simplifying it to a push of a button when a driver wants the deployment to happen and simplifying the recharge zones, that are same for everyone to avoid large speed differences to a few specific locations on track would at least bring back the feeling of drivers having full control of how they want the lap to go, where they want to push.

I've half thought about segregate and manual control of the engines, since there are two of them. If there are two engines in the car, an electrical engine and a combustion engine, there should be two accelerator pedals. Omit software mixing, leave it to the driver. Fiddle throttle pedal, or a secondary hand throttle on the wheel. Potentially a second brake pedal as well, or paddle on the wheel, to control MGUK negative torque. Forcing F1 drivers to operate through software, to be mediated by it, is ridiculous at this level of motorsport, where it should be all manual controls.

[Pingguest]

It’s said that on the longer term energy harvesting by both axles might be a solution. However, Mark Hughes objects because it will lead to the introduction of a new driver aid.

https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/easy ... ompletely/

As I’m a layman, do you have any thoughts on this?

[karana]

It’s said that on the longer term energy harvesting by both axles might be a solution. However, Mark Hughes objects because it will lead to the introduction of a new driver aid.

https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/easy ... ompletely/

As I’m a layman, do you have any thoughts on this?

Here is what someone working in F1 (GaryGiesel on reddit) said about this article:

What a nonsense article. In no way would adding single-motor front regen amount to stability control. It's just not how such systems work. Zero technical basis for this ridiculous assertion.

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/comme ... are_button

[stewie325]

If we thought DRS created artifical "push-to-pass" overtakes , then Overtake Mode is actually much worse.

The advantage it creates seems incredibly overpowered when the car in front is doing Lico or getting clipping.

They need to significantly reduce the power advantage and duration of Overtake Mode.

The 2009-style KERS at least had some transparency of how it affects performance - they should implement that and give the driver much more control instead of relying on automated deployment maps.

Overtake mode is not overpowered.

Majority of these "overpowered" overtakes did not happen because of Overtake mode. I wouldn't be surprised if the allowance of 0.5 MJ extra is not even used as it is not free (unlike DRS). To get 0.5 MJ you need to harvest it. Are we even sure the drivers are harvesting allowed maximum during the race and then that they are able to harvest 0.5 MJ more in a way that is laptime efficient?

Big overpowered overtakes happen because the cars choose to deploy their energy in different spots. If you are car ahead and you deploy energy to defend at end of main straight, when you get to a second straight you will have less energy than the car behind you. And then these big overpowered moves happen. Not because of overtake mode but because you defended by using energy before, this can happen because the driver behind you dummied you to use boost or for various other reasons.

If Overtake mode was overpowered then Mercedes would have much easier time overtaking and running away from Ferrari.

If it's caused by different deployment maps, you'd have constant switching of positions across the grid. But that doesn't happen.

In steady state where gaps are >1 second, they can follow each other quite consistently.

The artificial passes and re-passes only happen when the gaps are <1 second and Overtake Mode is available.

[pantherxxx]

These new regs seem to benefit drivers who make mistakes and punish skilled drivers.

McLaren TP Andrea Stella: "Occasionally there are comments from our drivers that once they make a mistake actually saves some energy..

"..therefore you go faster overall in a sector because the energy you saved with the delay in the throttle because you had a problem is going to reward you at the end of the straight."

That's why Charles said he can't push to the limit because the new regs work against you.

[GPblog, ThisIsFormu1a1]