2026 Japanese Grand Prix - Suzuka, March 27 - 29

[search]

Tire update after FP2:

[Seanspeed]

Alonso’s opinion I’m sure isn’t colored in any way by the fact he’s driving a pile of dog excrement right now.

This selective cherry-picking of old quotes (from testing, no less) is growing tiresome already. What about Hamilton’s more thoughts? Nobody cites those because they’re largely positive.

Hamilton is happy because these regulations are allowing him to be much closer to Leclerc. Not because the regs 'suit him' better, but because there's simply way less room for Leclerc(or any driver) to really make a difference.

He's also coming off the back of a very clean duel with his teammate that he came out on top of for his first podium at Ferrari. I dont think he'd be nearly as pleased if he was trying to overtake a different car, trying to chase down further cars ahead, but cant cuz everytime he overtakes, the other car just retakes him again and they spend a bunch of time battling and slowing each other up, and probably with greater danger from a less clean and composed battler than Leclerc.

So yea, I dont think Lewis' comments are exactly unbiased either.

I think Albon's comment is probably most succinct in demonstrating why these regulations suck: "There isn't really any high speed anymore. Because you're arriving so slowly, basically everything is a medium speed corner now".

[LeQuick]

Alonso’s opinion I’m sure isn’t colored in any way by the fact he’s driving a pile of dog excrement right now.

This selective cherry-picking of old quotes (from testing, no less) is growing tiresome already. What about Hamilton’s more thoughts? Nobody cites those because they’re largely positive.

Hamilton is happy because these regulations are allowing him to be much closer to Leclerc. Not because the regs 'suit him' better, but because there's simply way less room for Leclerc(or any driver) to really make a difference.

He's also coming off the back of a very clean duel with his teammate that he came out on top of for his first podium at Ferrari. I dont think he'd be nearly as pleased if he was trying to overtake a different car, trying to chase down further cars ahead, but cant cuz everytime he overtakes, the other car just retakes him again and they spend a bunch of time battling and slowing each other up, and probably with greater danger from a less clean and composed battler than Leclerc.

So yea, I dont think Lewis' comments are exactly unbiased either.

I think Albon's comment is probably most succinct in demonstrating why these regulations suck: "There isn't really any high speed anymore. Because you're arriving so slowly, basically everything is a medium speed corner now".

Lewis is already starting to change tune after a poor couple of practice sessions, don't be fooled, he'd be much worse than Max if he was having another 2025, more is yet to come IMO.

[AR3-GP]

Why does Alpine lose so much more speed than everyone else after the 130R? Could this be related to the drag they have with the wings closed? I think this figure should be telling us something about how much drag the cars have in the corner mode.

[AR3-GP]

The new Pirellis boss also said tires are very good. No deg, no graining and that teams could race on the soft tire. The new tarmac from T7 to T17 is helping.

[AR3-GP]

Tire update after FP2:

https://i.ibb.co/PzMdTrhY/suz-fp2.png

Merc/Ferrari/Mclaren will be able to do qualy with only 4 sets of the soft tires (1/1/2). There's no deg here.

[Rikhart]

I must be missing something…..what corners are they not driver/grip limited? 130r hasn’t counted as a corner for a long time how long has it been flat out for.

What corners are they driving below the limit because of harvesting???? That would otherwise not be a flat out corner????

Who cares if the straights are slow. Skill is in corners.

I assume I am missing something.

Read this:

https://racingnews365.com/fernando-alon ... d-drive-it

Alonso’s opinion I’m sure isn’t colored in any way by the fact he’s driving a pile of dog excrement right now.

This selective cherry-picking of old quotes (from testing, no less) is growing tiresome already. What about Hamilton’s more thoughts? Nobody cites those because they’re largely positive.

What I linked is not Alonso's opinion, he is talking about how now corners are taken at a tremendous less speed than before, because of battery babysitting. What he said is factual, you just have to look at the data.

[woocasz]

No OFFENSE to f1, but this is the worst year for F1 since I have started watching it in 2001. A big joke, like an arcade game. Yeah will still watch it, but will not lose any sleep time for it.

I bet that if Red Bull were fast and Max were fighting for race wins, you wouldn’t have written this post.

[Vettel165]

Yeah I'm done with these garbage regs. This will be the first year I can recall where I will not watch the Japanese Grand Prix or Quali live. I'm not staying up past midnight to watch cars superclip and lift and coast through corners making the whole thing meaningless. Oh I'm sure we'll see more fake overtakes driven by energy deltas on the straights but I have zero interest in that farce. F1 needs to change the combustion/electric split as much as it takes to ensure that the only harvesting needed to provide full power on demand is under normal braking. It doesn't matter if that makes the cars 5s a lap slower this season because they can boost the fuel flow for 27 to get us back to ~1000 hp.

Buddy I feel you-same, bring back the real f1.

[vorticism]

No OFFENSE to f1, but this is the worst year for F1 since I have started watching it in 2001. A big joke, like an arcade game. Yeah will still watch it, but will not lose any sleep time for it.

I bet that if Red Bull were fast and Max were fighting for race wins, you wouldn’t have written this post.

It would have been like 2014 and subsequent seasons. Everyone knows why the winner won. So if it was the case that RBR wasn't decapitated last year and turned up in 2026 with a better chassis and PU, Max would be suffering the same curse. These would have been his procedural victories. Participation victories. The onboards would have been even more damning than they are now, because eveyone would still have his recent drives on their mind, like Suzuka last year and others, and they'd bear little resemblance to what we see now.

[fourmula1]

Read this:

https://racingnews365.com/fernando-alon ... d-drive-it

Alonso’s opinion I’m sure isn’t colored in any way by the fact he’s driving a pile of dog excrement right now.

This selective cherry-picking of old quotes (from testing, no less) is growing tiresome already. What about Hamilton’s more thoughts? Nobody cites those because they’re largely positive.

What I linked is not Alonso's opinion, he is talking about how now corners are taken at a tremendous less speed than before, because of battery babysitting. What he said is factual, you just have to look at the data.

So, which corners at this track are they taking below the grip/driver limit in order to harvest? Aside from 130r which is not really a corner.

[AR3-GP]

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[vorticism]

[Wynters]

No OFFENSE to f1, but this is the worst year for F1 since I have started watching it in 2001. A big joke, like an arcade game. Yeah will still watch it, but will not lose any sleep time for it.

I bet that if Red Bull were fast and Max were fighting for race wins, you wouldn’t have written this post.

It would have been like 2014 and subsequent seasons. Everyone knows why the winner won. So if it was the case that RBR wasn't decapitated last year and turned up in 2026 with a better chassis and PU, Max would be suffering the same curse. These would have been his procedural victories. Participation victories. The onboards would have been even more damning than they are now, because eveyone would still have his recent drives on their mind, like Suzuka last year and others, and they'd bear little resemblance to what we see now.

Most of the same people complaining now seemed strangely content to witness the processional racing of the 2022 season. And the 2023 season.

[AR3-GP]

edit: deleted.