2026 Regulations - Critique thread

[feni_remmen]

The issue we care about is that the drivers are slowing down on the straights to add power to the batteries.

The best time to do this is always going to be at full throttle and at top speed. That IS the problem.

The usefulness of regenerative braking should be to get energy back that is otherwise lost as heat under brakes.

So… only allow regen to be used under proper braking, or off throttle.

Even with these current rules, that would immediately result in drivers being forced to try and carry speed and maintain momentum. Energy only goes into the batteries as part of a stopping event.

The cars will find it much harder to get their batteries up, but at least then each driver is in charge of their own push to pass. It could make battery usage into a long game strategy weapon instead of a short burst game of “you're it”!

[De Wet]

The Race:

F1's plan for six 2026 rules fixes revealed.

The first three races have laid bare the good, the bad, and the ugly of F1's new rules era, and a big push is under way to fix some obvious problems.

Those problems don't include the new yo-yo style of racing, which has prompted love and loathing in equal measure from drivers and fans, as F1 doesn't see it needing any urgent action.

That means the current sh*tshow is set to continue.

https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/f1-p ... explained/

[Tommy Cookers]

.... The usefulness of regenerative braking should be to get energy back that is otherwise lost as heat under brakes.
So… only allow regen to be used under proper braking, or off throttle....

yes ...
in English English the term regenerative denotes 'recovery' of already-existing energy produced by expenditure of fuel

only in FIA-English or FoM-English could 'recovery' denote expenditure of fuel only to make energy for storage
fuel burning to make electrical energy being primary generation, not re-generation

[feni_remmen]

.... The usefulness of regenerative braking should be to get energy back that is otherwise lost as heat under brakes.
So… only allow regen to be used under proper braking, or off throttle....

yes ...
in English English the term regenerative denotes 'recovery' of already-existing energy produced by expenditure of fuel

only in FIA-English or FoM-English could 'recovery' denote expenditure of fuel only to make energy for storage
fuel burning to make electrical energy being primary generation, not re-generation

Yes. This is the problem. This implementation of hybrid power has just become energy transference, rather than recovery. The only version of hybrid we should be entering is adding power to the mix with additional output and adding charge to the batteries as energy recovery. That should explicitly mean charging the batteries as byproduct of slowing down the car. Formula 1 has got it backwards.

[JordanMugen]

A formula which makes drivers purposefully go slower in corners (even though their cars are built to handle much more than that) in order to be faster overall is just unacceptable. And that’s my biggest problem with the current regulations. I wouldn’t even care much about the ridiculous superclipping.

For modern F1 - which has been the pinnacle of motorsport for decades and specifically known for it’s highly sophisticated aerodynamics producing tons of downforce - the primary goal has always been to be as fast as possible in the corners.
Every single driver back then in karting when they were little kids wearing diapers pushed the corners. It’s in their DNA and I don’t believe any one saying that he prefers this style of driving over the “normal” one.

If the regs didn't change then i could see a team building a car with significantly less downforce to pull the cars closer to being grip limited in these harvesting corners/zones. This would give even faster straight line speeds and maybe be watchable as the cars would be on their limits in corners and even faster on the straight and gain laptime.

Not what we were used to seeing, but maybe it might be fun

Cadillac already have a grip limited car!

It doesn't seem to make them faster...

[f1316]

The Race:

F1's plan for six 2026 rules fixes revealed.

The first three races have laid bare the good, the bad, and the ugly of F1's new rules era, and a big push is under way to fix some obvious problems.

Those problems don't include the new yo-yo style of racing, which has prompted love and loathing in equal measure from drivers and fans, as F1 doesn't see it needing any urgent action.

That means the current sh*tshow is set to continue.

https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/f1-p ... explained/

I see Gary Anderson talking a lot for the Race about how the driver needs to be in control of the power output: https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/the- ... -anderson/

I agree with this wholeheartedly (it’s a simple solution to an unnecessarily complex problem) but I also think there’s an even simpler mechanism for solving it than he’s suggesting: Gary’s approach requires the teams to supply a validated power curve that gets mapped to the throttle pedal - but I think that adds another element of potential system gaming and backend architecture that you don’t need.

Instead of making the throttle pedal the only mechanism for the driver to define power output, simply reuse the KERS deployment mechanism used in 2009-2013 (ie a button). That way the pedal still controls the ICE and the driver can define when to push the button, but both remain in the driver’s control. Yes, it’s much more powerful than the old KERS and a button is a binary mechanism, but so what? If the driver knows it’s binary - and it’s binary for all - then they can all work to that set of demands/limitations. I think that would be a much more elegant fix.

[bananapeel23]

The Race:

F1's plan for six 2026 rules fixes revealed.

The first three races have laid bare the good, the bad, and the ugly of F1's new rules era, and a big push is under way to fix some obvious problems.

Those problems don't include the new yo-yo style of racing, which has prompted love and loathing in equal measure from drivers and fans, as F1 doesn't see it needing any urgent action.

That means the current sh*tshow is set to continue.

https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/f1-p ... explained/

Instead of making the throttle pedal the only mechanism for the driver to define power output, simply reuse the KERS deployment mechanism used in 2009-2013 (ie a button). That way the pedal still controls the ICE and the driver can define when to push the button, but both remain in the driver’s control. Yes, it’s much more powerful than the old KERS and a button is a binary mechanism, but so what? If the driver knows it’s binary - and it’s binary for all - then they can all work to that set of demands/limitations. I think that would be a much more elegant fix.

Or you just add another paddle so the driver gets an analogue input and gets to choose exactly how much to deploy out of the MGU-K. Just slam the throttle to the floor and then the driver can manually control how much he deploys from the MGU-K with the help of said paddle.

Instead of the helmet cam they could also add a tiny HUD to the helmet, allowing the driver to always see how much charge remains without having to look at the steering wheel.