2026 Chinese Grand Prix - Shanghai, March 13-15

[FittingMechanics]

It's many times better than the crap we had before 2022 for decades. And overtakes do happen. The problem is that there are too many gaps in performance. Ferrari is too weak compared to Mercedes. And behind Ferrari there's also a big gap.

If we had smaller gaps the racing would be really great. Even right now the racing is pretty good, especially in earlier parts of the races. I'm hoping that the teams close the gap before the aero development makes following close too hard.

[the EDGE]

It's many times better than the crap we had before 2022 for decades. And overtakes do happen. The problem is that there are too many gaps in performance. Ferrari is too weak compared to Mercedes. And behind Ferrari there's also a big gap.

If we had smaller gaps the racing would be really great. Even right now the racing is pretty good, especially in earlier parts of the races. I'm hoping that the teams close the gap before the aero development makes following close too hard.

Totally disagree.

Racing today is far worst than when DRS was at its worst. Formula One should be about skill, no state of charge

[FittingMechanics]

It's many times better than the crap we had before 2022 for decades. And overtakes do happen. The problem is that there are too many gaps in performance. Ferrari is too weak compared to Mercedes. And behind Ferrari there's also a big gap.

If we had smaller gaps the racing would be really great. Even right now the racing is pretty good, especially in earlier parts of the races. I'm hoping that the teams close the gap before the aero development makes following close too hard.

Totally disagree.

Racing today is far worst than when DRS was at its worst. Formula One should be about skill, no state of charge

You are free to have that opinion.

Formula 1 is about finishing a race ahead of everyone else, usually this means in shortest time possible. To do that, you need a car capable of doing it and you (as a driver) need skill to execute. Both of these still apply, even though the way in which your skill is needed is different.

DRS is much worse as it is effectively "rubberbanding" the car behind to the car ahead. It is artificial, has no downside and is hard to tune. These rules would be good for overtaking even without "overtake mode". In fact, I bet that we'd see majority of these battles even if overtake mode didn't exist. My view is that these overtakes happen because the cars can choose to be fast in different areas of the track, so you are able to create overlaps where none existed before.

Overtake mode is similar to DRS in that it gives an advantage to the car behind but unlike DRS, overtake mode is not free. To use it you need to recharge more, which means you need to slow down somewhere. I would love to have proper data from the race to see whether the teams really use the extra recharging allowance from the overtake mode.

[mzso]

It's many times better than the crap we had before 2022 for decades. And overtakes do happen. The problem is that there are too many gaps in performance. Ferrari is too weak compared to Mercedes. And behind Ferrari there's also a big gap.

If we had smaller gaps the racing would be really great. Even right now the racing is pretty good, especially in earlier parts of the races. I'm hoping that the teams close the gap before the aero development makes following close too hard.

Totally disagree.

Racing today is far worst than when DRS was at its worst. Formula One should be about skill, no state of charge

Yes, skillfully playing choo-choo train. That requires great talent.

[Just_a_fan]

It's interesting that the two drivers who had equal cars found the racing to be fun/enjoyable.

CL and LH both enjoyed themselves and did plenty of wheel-to-wheel racing in, crucially, the places where the drivers make a real difference: the twisty sections.

Refreshing to see racing without shenanigans, frankly.

The issue that some cars are better than others is not new. It happened in the previous rule set too, and before that, and before that, and before that. Indeed, a dominant team is typical in modern F1 (the aero eras).

People moaning about pure racing / not F1 / whatever would need to go back to the pre-aero days (or at least the early days of aero when the aero was rubbish). Going back to the V8 or V10 days would just bring noise. Nothing in terms of racing unless the aero was heavily prescribed by the FIA and that would likely annoy some people too.