Possible solutions to improve the 2026 Engine Regulations

[Bence]

...an-ointment???

[fourmula1]

Each and every solution which is overcomplicated WILL damage the entire sport long term. F1 is a bit lost in a huge sea of regulations. And it does NOT need even more stewpid lettervomiting, but simple solutions which are existing BECAUSE OF & FOR the most important thing that makes F1 as valuable as is today: the entire fanbase. Without these people F1 could run its hyperspace-efficient, irrelevant tech - and NO ONE would care less.

Spot On. I missed the Chinese GP - My First in over 45 years.

You should watch it because it was likely very entertaining to the vast majority of viewers. Driver to survive is huge, f1 reddit exploded, apple tv is now in the game. No one cares about you they care about viewers and clicks and add revenue.

So the comments above are misguided from the beginning. The fanbase has been expanding and for most these two races were probably pretty exciting.

[hollus]

Each and every solution which is overcomplicated WILL damage the entire sport long term. F1 is a bit lost in a huge sea of regulations. And it does NOT need even more stewpid lettervomiting, but simple solutions which are existing BECAUSE OF & FOR the most important thing that makes F1 as valuable as is today: the entire fanbase. Without these people F1 could run its hyperspace-efficient, irrelevant tech - and NO ONE would care less.

Spot On. I missed the Chinese GP - My First in over 45 years.

Wait, did you miss the Chinese GP live, or did you not watch it at all?

[JRalph]

My assumption is that the cars software will decide to super clip based off of distance into a lap, meaning that if the end of the straight is 2000m into a lap, super clipping would happen at an pre optimized distance (say 1600m to 1900m) depending on the track and harvesting needs. Is this a true assumption?

[AR3-GP]

My assumption is that the cars software will decide to super clip based off of distance into a lap, meaning that if the end of the straight is 2000m into a lap, super clipping would happen at an pre optimized distance (say 1600m to 1900m) depending on the track and harvesting needs. Is this a true assumption?

The teams are not using GPS to operate this system. So any distance algorithm would have to count revolutions of the wheels. You need some redundancies because if driver goes off track in T1 or there is wheel spin or lockup then the system would go out of sync with the circuit. A lot of other parameters like throttle shape, braking events, speed, battery level and so on can be used to try and reinforce the location tracking.

[dia6olo]

For a number of years I have made the effort to get up at stupid hours to watch all the sessions.
I did so again for the opening 2 weekends but won't be bothering with Suzuka & maybe others apart from the race and maybe qualifying.
The opening 2 weekends left me feeling like what is the point, this is not Formula 1.

As others have said and I'm of the same opinion, I have no doubt it will change, teams will better understand how to navigate the situation, the PU's will eventually even out and it'll start resembling F1 again.
Until then though I am not willing to go out of my way anymore to watch what I saw the opening 2 weekends.
I also can't imagine the FIA will be happy with seeing a Mercedes 1-2 every weekend which is what's going to happen unless they change something so it's up to them!

[Bence]

Wow, I just noticed that my topic (which has nothing to do with the engine-aspects) was merged with the engine regulations... WTF?

[De Wet]

Each and every solution which is overcomplicated WILL damage the entire sport long term. F1 is a bit lost in a huge sea of regulations. And it does NOT need even more stewpid lettervomiting, but simple solutions which are existing BECAUSE OF & FOR the most important thing that makes F1 as valuable as is today: the entire fanbase. Without these people F1 could run its hyperspace-efficient, irrelevant tech - and NO ONE would care less.

Spot On. I missed the Chinese GP - My First in over 45 years.

Wait, did you miss the Chinese GP live, or did you not watch it at all?

Did not watch it at all. Watched the highlights yesterday. Still Sh*t "racing"

[hollus]

You have a lot of strong opinions over something you did not watch, I shall not bother you with details, then.
China was much “less bad” than Australia.

[WardenOfTheNorth]

Each and every solution which is overcomplicated WILL damage the entire sport long term. F1 is a bit lost in a huge sea of regulations. And it does NOT need even more stewpid lettervomiting, but simple solutions which are existing BECAUSE OF & FOR the most important thing that makes F1 as valuable as is today: the entire fanbase. Without these people F1 could run its hyperspace-efficient, irrelevant tech - and NO ONE would care less.

Spot On. I missed the Chinese GP - My First in over 45 years.

You should watch it because it was likely very entertaining to the vast majority of viewers. Driver to survive is huge, f1 reddit exploded, apple tv is now in the game. No one cares about you they care about viewers and clicks and add revenue.

So the comments above are misguided from the beginning. The fanbase has been expanding and for most these two races were probably pretty exciting.

I watched it and really enjoyed it. Then again, I simply wasn't focusing on the clipping etc and was more interested in what was actually happening between cars.

I think all they need to do is slightly redress the ICE-Electrical balance to mean that they can do an entire Quali lap without running the battery flat and they'll have a workable formula until the next PU formula comes in.

[Badger]

Each and every solution which is overcomplicated WILL damage the entire sport long term. F1 is a bit lost in a huge sea of regulations. And it does NOT need even more stewpid lettervomiting, but simple solutions which are existing BECAUSE OF & FOR the most important thing that makes F1 as valuable as is today: the entire fanbase. Without these people F1 could run its hyperspace-efficient, irrelevant tech - and NO ONE would care less.

Spot On. I missed the Chinese GP - My First in over 45 years.

You should watch it because it was likely very entertaining to the vast majority of viewers. Driver to survive is huge, f1 reddit exploded, apple tv is now in the game. No one cares about you they care about viewers and clicks and add revenue.

So the comments above are misguided from the beginning. The fanbase has been expanding and for most these two races were probably pretty exciting.

No thanks to this engine regulation The fact that the fanbase has been growing is an indictment against the need for this radical shift. It showed new fans were capable of understanding F1 racing without the need for "yo-yo overtaking".

But there is a world where we got the best of both worlds. We got the smaller, lighter cars with less downforce that we have now, and we got an engine with a more reasonable power split that doesn't detract from the sport. This debate doesn't have to be about old regulation vs current regulation, it should be about how do we improve the current regulations?

[langedweil]

Spot On. I missed the Chinese GP - My First in over 45 years.

You should watch it because it was likely very entertaining to the vast majority of viewers. Driver to survive is huge, f1 reddit exploded, apple tv is now in the game. No one cares about you they care about viewers and clicks and add revenue.

So the comments above are misguided from the beginning. The fanbase has been expanding and for most these two races were probably pretty exciting.

No thanks to this engine regulation The fact that the fanbase has been growing is an indictment against the need for this radical shift. It showed new fans were capable of understanding F1 racing without the need for "yo-yo overtaking".

But there is a world where we got the best of both worlds. We got the smaller, lighter cars with less downforce that we have now, and we got an engine with a more reasonable power split that doesn't detract from the sport. This debate doesn't have to be about old regulation vs current regulation, it should be about how do we improve the current regulations?

Imo any real improvement can only be reached by making sure energy starvation during a lap is no longer a part of the equasion.

[WardenOfTheNorth]

You should watch it because it was likely very entertaining to the vast majority of viewers. Driver to survive is huge, f1 reddit exploded, apple tv is now in the game. No one cares about you they care about viewers and clicks and add revenue.

So the comments above are misguided from the beginning. The fanbase has been expanding and for most these two races were probably pretty exciting.

No thanks to this engine regulation The fact that the fanbase has been growing is an indictment against the need for this radical shift. It showed new fans were capable of understanding F1 racing without the need for "yo-yo overtaking".

But there is a world where we got the best of both worlds. We got the smaller, lighter cars with less downforce that we have now, and we got an engine with a more reasonable power split that doesn't detract from the sport. This debate doesn't have to be about old regulation vs current regulation, it should be about how do we improve the current regulations?

Imo any real improvement can only be reached by making sure energy starvation during a lap is no longer a part of the equasion.

Hopefully they tweak the current PU to achieve that very soon. Because it should be possible. Yes they'll be slightly slower overall for now, but only back to 2015-6 levels and the teams will find ways to get faster through the regulation cycle.

[bananapeel23]

You should watch it because it was likely very entertaining to the vast majority of viewers. Driver to survive is huge, f1 reddit exploded, apple tv is now in the game. No one cares about you they care about viewers and clicks and add revenue.

So the comments above are misguided from the beginning. The fanbase has been expanding and for most these two races were probably pretty exciting.

No thanks to this engine regulation The fact that the fanbase has been growing is an indictment against the need for this radical shift. It showed new fans were capable of understanding F1 racing without the need for "yo-yo overtaking".

But there is a world where we got the best of both worlds. We got the smaller, lighter cars with less downforce that we have now, and we got an engine with a more reasonable power split that doesn't detract from the sport. This debate doesn't have to be about old regulation vs current regulation, it should be about how do we improve the current regulations?

Imo any real improvement can only be reached by making sure energy starvation during a lap is no longer a part of the equasion.

Ehh I do think super clipping is fine as long as the cars don’t lose speed while doing it and merely slow acceleration or stop accelerating.

These cars are disgustingly aero efficient at high speeds, so they don’t really need a lot of power to keep the speed up. With 85 kg/hr fuel flow, the cars would likely be able to at least maintain their speed into the mid-300s while superclipping at 200kW in straight line mode. (At least if my napkin math is correct)

A minor harvesting allowance reduction along with more fuel flow would likely remove 90% of the issues.

[langedweil]

No thanks to this engine regulation The fact that the fanbase has been growing is an indictment against the need for this radical shift. It showed new fans were capable of understanding F1 racing without the need for "yo-yo overtaking".

But there is a world where we got the best of both worlds. We got the smaller, lighter cars with less downforce that we have now, and we got an engine with a more reasonable power split that doesn't detract from the sport. This debate doesn't have to be about old regulation vs current regulation, it should be about how do we improve the current regulations?

Imo any real improvement can only be reached by making sure energy starvation during a lap is no longer a part of the equasion.

Ehh I do think super clipping is fine as long as the cars don’t lose speed while doing it and merely slow acceleration or stop accelerating.

These cars are disgustingly aero efficient at high speeds, so they don’t really need a lot of power to keep the speed up. With 85 kg/hr fuel flow, the cars would likely be able to at least maintain their speed into the mid-300s while superclipping at 200kW in straight line mode. (At least if my napkin math is correct)

A minor harvesting allowance reduction along with more fuel flow would likely remove 90% of the issues.

Than solely reducing the storage from 9 to 8MJ in Q ain't enough I'd say?
Just by gut feeling that should be down to 5/6 and 95 ? I know the fuels are denser and therefor not 1:1 comparable, but that cancels out starvation way better.
Only question is how ICE's would handle such an increase .. however, I kinda do miss the occasional on-track blowups

Anyway, imo changes should result in enough MJ possible to harvest with on-the-edge cornering and not losing top-speeds. The driver should be the limit, not only the PU. Another addition would be to somehow cut back on the algoritmic deployment, and make it more driver/team.

All in all, it all feels very synthetic.
Just get rid of this PU format asap; use electrical only for short off-corner traction and OM (instead of DRS) with small storage and high harvesting. If needed for the turbo's, put in a small standardized mgu-h. Less storage makes for lighter and more nimble cars as well.