2026 Japanese Grand Prix - Suzuka, March 27 - 29

[Partymood]

Carlos Sainz:
"The accident that happened today with Bearman—we've been warning the FIA and FOM as drivers that it was only a matter of time"

Yeah, but think of all the fuel that was saved right before he was almost killed.

You're absolutely right, with what it costs them...

[Vinlarr89]

Actually think these active aero cars with V10s would be absolutely insane

[PlatinumZealot]

Who said we don't want refueling ?
You're right about the 1000hp; I'd love V10's but I could easily embrace a proper V6 hybrid, as long as it has 1000hp at any time.
Diverting from a DRS aid at specific locations, to electrical OM anywhere a driver desires; I'd like to think it's at least better than DRS as it can be used more unpredictably.
What needs to go is slowing down significantly in corners to be able to charge, to run out of power on a straights (less deployment?), LiCo for charging purposes, superclipping or anything that's caused by some sort of energy starvation, and most of all : no AI regulated deployment interference at any time. Use AWS before a race as much as you'd like to test strategy; on track it should be driver decision only, possibly viewable by team.

In a nutshell ..

To me DRS and Overtake mode (additional recharge amount) are both bad and "gimmicks". They are making the playing field uneven just because someone is behind a set amount at arbitrary point on track. DRS is worse of the two because it has no downsides for the car behind. For overtake mode you need ability to recharge more and that comes with it's own set of issues (you may expose yourself to the car behind).

Ability to use energy in different spots (without overtake mode) is what I like about these rules. I think it will allow for much more on track action with a level playing field. Once drivers adapt to this it will lead to better races.

Superclipping and LiCo I would ban immediately. They were added only because they can't recharge enough with normal braking and take away from the challenge. So what if the cars can harvest 4MJ of the 8 MJ total. They will be slower but laptime is not that important. I am hoping that with time (and development) they start to tune down these recharge amounts until we can get rid of superclip and lico.

The teams are not forced to superclip. They superclip because it is the fastest way to get laptime in these rules of limited battery energy and limited recharging.

It simply is saying that there is not enough rear wheel braking energy to serve the amount battery that the 350kW MGUK needs to boost for the whole lap.

Before this wasn't an issue because the MGUH plus and the higher100kg/hr fuel flow was providing around 200kW above what we have today. So you can imagine on most tracks there was zero need for superclipping.

The only fix to the superclipping malarkey is to return the ICE to MGUK ratio back down to something like 70:30. The rear brakes and lack of MGUH simply cannot support the 50:50 ratio.

[zibby43]

Can we have a dedicated thread going forward for all the complaining about the current regs?

I miss these threads actually being more about the event. I get the fact that some other folks miss Verstappen winning 19 out of 22 races in 2023 - a banner year for excitement and close racing in F1.

Zibby!

Glad to see you still around these parts my friend!

[zibby43]

Can we have a dedicated thread going forward for all the complaining about the current regs?

I miss these threads actually being more about the event. I get the fact that some other folks miss Verstappen winning 19 out of 22 races in 2023 - a banner year for excitement and close racing in F1.

Yeah. The whinging needs to be super-clipped!!

[langedweil]

Carlos Sainz:
"The accident that happened today with Bearman—we've been warning the FIA and FOM as drivers that it was only a matter of time"

Yeah, but think of all the fuel that was saved right before he was almost killed.

Superclipping =

[aMessageToCharlie]

Q: "What you would like to see changed before Miami?”
Lando: “There's no point of saying it, honestly. It doesn't matter what we [drivers] say. As long as the fans enjoy it, that's all that matters”
Q: “The drivers need to enjoy it as well”
Lando: Clearly not.”

Bruh...

“Formula 1 changes all the time. Sometimes it’s a bit better to drive, sometimes it’s not as good to drive.

“But we get paid a stupid amount of money to drive, so you can’t really complain at the end of the day.

“Any driver can go and find something else to do. It’s not like he has to be here or any driver has to be here. It’s a challenge, but it’s a good, fun challenge for the engineers, for the drivers. It’s different.

“You have to drive it in a different way and understand things differently and manage things differently, but I still get to drive cars and travel the world and have a lot of fun. So no, nothing to complain about.”

Honestly Norris should just shut his pie hole. He has lost all credibility after these comments.

[BMMR61]

I don't know if anyone has posed this question before. How is super clipping going to look in the wet conditions we often see at Montreal and Spa with less than ideal visibility? I'd say that the race control would have to be much more conservative with cars suddenly slowing on straight and going through fast curves.

[FittingMechanics]

I think the most obvious way to improve on what we get now is limit clipping in such a way that drivers reach a top speed which can they maintain to the end of the straight. Instead of peaking early then slowing down. This would both result in less top speed (with a hit on the laptime) and them needing to generate during turns. Which is less efficient, further increasing laptime.

However a likely outcome could be the return of car trains. I think the eclectic charge level situation may be the only thing that results in cars making overtaking moves. So maybe they will hardly change anything.

From what I can understand, the reason they slow down on the end of straights is not because they spent their energy and are on ICE alone (the ICE is powerful enough to run these cars in SLM at over 330 kph). They slow down because they start to harvest. No amount of limiting power will change the fact they will want to recover all allowed energy and thus they will turn to super clip or lift and coast harvest.

You need to ban super clip / lico or you need to make the recharge limit so much lower that superclip and lico are not needed.

[FittingMechanics]

The teams are not forced to superclip. They superclip because it is the fastest way to get laptime in these rules of limited battery energy and limited recharging.

It simply is saying that there is not enough rear wheel braking energy to serve the amount battery that the 350kW MGUK needs to boost for the whole lap.

Before this wasn't an issue because the MGUH plus and the higher100kg/hr fuel flow was providing around 200kW above what we have today. So you can imagine on most tracks there was zero need for superclipping.

The only fix to the superclipping malarkey is to return the ICE to MGUK ratio back down to something like 70:30. The rear brakes and lack of MGUH simply cannot support the 50:50 ratio.

I'm aware that they do it because it is faster. You can still ban it. Just ban superclip and lico harvesting and the cars will be full throttle and then brake. Maybe they will adapt their braking style to not be as on the limit (smaller brakes so a larger ratio goes to the MGU-K) but it will look more normal.

[avantman]

Actually think these active aero cars with V10s would be absolutely insane

A Car fitted with NA V10 engine wouldn't need silly active aero systems, which is nothing but a cheap quick fix to cover holes caused by pathetic pu formula . Active aero does literally hamper racing and overtaking making it much less probable. It is beneficial for a defender, detrimental for an attacker, makes defending a position much easier and is directly opposed to the aim the FOM and the FIA allegedly set- more and easier overtaking and better racing.

[SiLo]

I think the most obvious way to improve on what we get now is limit clipping in such a way that drivers reach a top speed which can they maintain to the end of the straight. Instead of peaking early then slowing down. This would both result in less top speed (with a hit on the laptime) and them needing to generate during turns. Which is less efficient, further increasing laptime.

However a likely outcome could be the return of car trains. I think the eclectic charge level situation may be the only thing that results in cars making overtaking moves. So maybe they will hardly change anything.

I was thinking this last night. They reach top speed SO fast. Why not just limit deployment and have them reach top speed at the end of the straight?

This is all down to 50:50 split though. It should really be 70:30.

[basti313]

Actually think these active aero cars with V10s would be absolutely insane

A Car fitted with NA V10 engine wouldn't need silly active aero systems, which is nothing but a cheap quick fix to cover holes caused by pathetic pu formula . Active aero does literally hamper racing and overtaking making it much less probable. It is beneficial for a defender, detrimental for an attacker, makes defending a position much easier and is directly opposed to the aim the FOM and the FIA allegedly set- more and easier overtaking and better racing.

I think this is the big issue. Slipstream is simply not there anymore. It helps on certain tracks with energy management, but you can not overtake by using the slipstream.

I fear, that the future of this ruleset showed up between McLaren and Merc. Russel could not overtake Piastri although he had much, much more pace in the car (0.4sec visible, 0.7s presumably if we look at Ant times and Rus being about 0.3s slower). So once the differences between these engines vanish, there will be no overtaking anymore. Yes, there might be some Yo-Yo because of energy deployment being far off...but really geting past and staying ahead will not be there.
I fear this will be much worse than DRS once the engine concepts converge. Without the current mushrooms and bananas overtaking will be gone.

[Cassius]

Actually think these active aero cars with V10s would be absolutely insane

A Car fitted with NA V10 engine wouldn't need silly active aero systems, which is nothing but a cheap quick fix to cover holes caused by pathetic pu formula . Active aero does literally hamper racing and overtaking making it much less probable. It is beneficial for a defender, detrimental for an attacker, makes defending a position much easier and is directly opposed to the aim the FOM and the FIA allegedly set- more and easier overtaking and better racing.

I think this is the big issue. Slipstream is simply not there anymore. It helps on certain tracks with energy management, but you can not overtake by using the slipstream.

I fear, that the future of this ruleset showed up between McLaren and Merc. Russel could not overtake Piastri although he had much, much more pace in the car (0.4sec visible, 0.7s presumably if we look at Ant times and Rus being about 0.3s slower). So once the differences between these engines vanish, there will be no overtaking anymore. Yes, there might be some Yo-Yo because of energy deployment being far off...but really geting past and staying ahead will not be there.
I fear this will be much worse than DRS once the engine concepts converge. Without the current mushrooms and bananas overtaking will be gone.

Fully agree with your analysis. Exactly my worry as well.

Many overtakes yesterday were due to engine gremlins (including the ones on Hamilton and where Russell lost to HAM). It was basically a big boost mode train after the safety car. As soon as teams converge and fix their starts it will only get worse.

The issue with these regs is that tyre deg is almost no issue for now. So less differences between teams there. And because in the high speed corners they are all clipping you cannot decide to use your tyres a bit more to be closer for the DRS overtake. You are basically a passenger of the software.

[Lasssept]

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