2026 Japanese Grand Prix - Suzuka, March 27 - 29

[De Wet]

Half the lap is Cruise Control.

[Juzh]

I guess Verstappen knocked out in Q2 is the regulations, and not him just putting in a poor performance as a whole by not finding the right set up.

in China he was 0.1s ahead of Hadjar, here 0.1s behind, so yeah, looks like this is his normal (quali) level at the moment. Maybe adapting his driving style would help, but this would likely take time.

Hadjar can have his 5 seconds of fame in qualifying. Max will eat in him in the race. In china Hadjar was absolutely nowhere in race trim even though he was close in quali, I predict similar thing will happen here.

[Juzh]

lol they had to cut the onboard on the back straight

I'm fairly certain something broke on Antonelli's car because telemetry is also dead after spoon, that's why there's no onboard footage.

[TimW]

To me the solution is to ban any direct ICE to MGUK regeneration. It does not make sense from a sustainability point of view anyway.

It would not help at all. It would just create even more lift and coast.

How so? The fuel that they don't burn to charge the battery can be used for other purposes. So how would it lead to more lift and coast?

[search]

Hadjar can have his 5 seconds of fame in qualifying. Max will eat in him in the race. In china Hadjar was absolutely nowhere in race trim even though he was close in quali, I predict similar thing will happen here.

yeah, I think so too, but it's not like Verstappen scoring points is a given either. That car is just slow, and going by China, even more so in the race.

[AR3-GP]

Hadjar can have his 5 seconds of fame in qualifying. Max will eat in him in the race. In china Hadjar was absolutely nowhere in race trim even though he was close in quali, I predict similar thing will happen here.

Juzh, relax. Hadjar is not the enemy. He is Red Bull's 2nd driver. The only 5 seconds of fame here is for those who think Max Verstappen is struggling.

[AR3-GP]

Hadjar can have his 5 seconds of fame in qualifying. Max will eat in him in the race. In china Hadjar was absolutely nowhere in race trim even though he was close in quali, I predict similar thing will happen here.

yeah, I think so too, but it's not like Verstappen scoring points is a given either. That car is just slow, and going by China, even more so in the race.

He dropped to the back in China, got screwed by a safety car, and still ended up running P6 on the road before his retirement... Do people have no memory of 2015? I know folks are chomping at the bit to write off Max Verstappen, but that'll usually bite you in the rear.

[PlatinumZealot]

I was pleasantly delighted after Q2. Who says these rules make qualifying boring?! Very close racing. Good job I think the Audi engine is stronger than the RedBull Engine. Hadjar is the real deal!

About to watch Q3 now.

[bananapeel23]

To me the solution is to ban any direct ICE to MGUK regeneration. It does not make sense from a sustainability point of view anyway.

It would not help at all. It would just create even more lift and coast.

How so? The fuel that they don't burn to charge the battery can be used for other purposes. So how would it lead to more lift and coast?

They can burn as much fuel as they want, as long as the instantaneous energy flow rate never exceeds 3000 MJ/h (~70kg/hr) at full throttle. They can start the race with as much fuel as they like.

Since the energy flow rate is capped, they can’t simply avoid fuel burning and inject the fuel into the ICE instead.

The alternative to super clipping is lifting and coasting.

Though I think that theoretically, banning super clipping or severely limiting it would be good. You could achieve what you are talking about by simply raising the fuel flow limit and banning or severely restricting super clipping.

But frankly these regulations are so undercooked that it’s going to be hard to get the drivers to push fully pretty much no matter what as long as the harvesting limits are as high as they are. Baku is the only track where the 8.5 MJ harvesting allowance makes sense, and is the only track where it could work without any LiCo or super clipping. But in the case of Baku the battery is too small, meaning that they will avoid harvesting under braking to be able to super clip on the straight, since otherwise the battery wouldn’t last for the turn 2-3 straight.

[AR3-GP]

I think the Audi engine is stronger than the RedBull Engine.

Is Audi allowed to retrofit the engine?
The engineers have also identified a deficit in general engine power. Mattia Binotto is already in contact with the FIA to make upgrades to the hardware via the so-called ADOU procedure. According to the regulations, teams that lack more than two percent combustion engine power are given the opportunity to retrofit during the season.

https://www.auto-motor-und-sport.de/for ... hrbarkeit/



Hadjar outqualified both Audi cars despite being 15kg overweight. Audi's problem IS their engine. Their corner speeds are higher than Red Bull.

[search]

Hadjar can have his 5 seconds of fame in qualifying. Max will eat in him in the race. In china Hadjar was absolutely nowhere in race trim even though he was close in quali, I predict similar thing will happen here.

yeah, I think so too, but it's not like Verstappen scoring points is a given either. That car is just slow, and going by China, even more so in the race.

He dropped to the back in China, got screwed by a safety car, and still ended up running P6 on the road before his retirement... Do people have no memory of 2015? I know folks are chomping at the bit to write off Max Verstappen, but that'll usually bite you in the rear.

yeah, well, I saw the race. Gasly and Bearman on the same strategy were faster when Verstappen retired, both McLaren DNS'ed, and everyone starting on hards was screwed by the SC.

"Points not a given" was maybe a bit exaggerated, but I would say it's a realistic assumption to expect both McLaren to be faster currently, which would leave Verstappen 9th best in China. And it's not like the Audi starting ahead looks much slower either.

[PlatinumZealot]

Unfortunately the only way to protest this ruleset is to not engage with it.

Liberty are only interested in engagement and profit.

Watching the outboard shots there is no way you can tell what is happening in the PU deployments. The cars look fast, nimble and twitch a lot more than the ground effect barges -certainly more entertaining to watch! I think certain fanbases are just bitter because their teams are under-performing.

[PlatinumZealot]

Max is running experimental setups and sacrificing his own performance to help the team. Getting outqualified in this way demonstrates his commitment and even his character, and when his teammate lucks into a race win later this year and Red Bull improves from p4 to p3 in the constructors standings next year, Max will deserve all the credit, for none of it would have been possible if he had not so generously run experimental setups

Agreed. I think this will cement his legacy if he can win a race or two by end of year or even go for championship in 2027.

[Gillian]

Btw, got to know how much David Croft understands the regs. At the beginning of Q, he was telling Button "they have reduced the battery charge to 8MJ for quali, the extra 0.5MJ would have made the car too heavy" , to which Button said something (don't remember exactly) as if he was agreeing to it.

Sky is pathetic. The commentators don't understand the 'bottom basics' about the formula and are just using a word salad with random use of terms like 'recharge/deploy/clipping' etc ; seemingly not even having made an attempt to ask someone to explain what MJ means, what KW means etc. If anyone has contacts in Sky, please forward this message or the clip from telecast, to the bosses in charge of 'content'. Pathetic is the only word to describe Croft.

Yeah I always hate it how heavy my phone is after charging.

[PlatinumZealot]

It would not help at all. It would just create even more lift and coast.

How so? The fuel that they don't burn to charge the battery can be used for other purposes. So how would it lead to more lift and coast?

They can burn as much fuel as they want, as long as the instantaneous energy flow rate never exceeds 3000 MJ/h (~70kg/hr) at full throttle. They can start the race with as much fuel as they like.

Since the energy flow rate is capped, they can’t simply avoid fuel burning and inject the fuel into the ICE instead.

The alternative to super clipping is lifting and coasting.

Though I think that theoretically, banning super clipping or severely limiting it would be good. You could achieve what you are talking about by simply raising the fuel flow limit and banning or severely restricting super clipping.

But frankly these regulations are so undercooked that it’s going to be hard to get the drivers to push fully pretty much no matter what as long as the harvesting limits are as high as they are. Baku is the only track where the 8.5 MJ harvesting allowance makes sense, and is the only track where it could work without any LiCo or super clipping. But in the case of Baku the battery is too small, meaning that they will avoid harvesting under braking to be able to super clip on the straight, since otherwise the battery wouldn’t last for the turn 2-3 straight.

The super-clipping is because, for a limited engine power output, the battery energy over the lap is insufficient to go balls to the wall, so you have to ration battery deployment to get the best lap time. Ergo, it stands that if you didn't have to ration electrical energy, there would be no super-clipping.

Rationing is a supply vs demand problem. To reduce rationing then, you will need a bigger supply or a reduced demand. A bigger electrical energy supply means bigger battery, MGUH, or front wheel generator, (Or dumping excess fuel into a highly magentically excited MGUK, but I'm taking this out because track to track it will vary). To reduce electrical energy demand the simple way is to cut down the deployment kiloWatts (rather than the energy as FIA cuts on energy means the drivers are using peak kilowatts at selected sections and not others leading to the clipping again), or increase engine horsepower so the cars are power limited.