2026 Pre-Season Testing

[nitrotech]

Can someone enlighten, if the "no electric power below 50kph" applies to safety car rolling restarts as well? I would guess it applies to standing restarts. But how about rolling restarts?

[FittingMechanics]

Can someone enlighten, if the "no electric power below 50kph" applies to safety car rolling restarts as well? I would guess it applies to standing restarts. But how about rolling restarts?

IIRC it is just for starts (standing starts). You can use it out of the pitstop or at other times (if you stop for example).

[FittingMechanics]

Their start advantage basically doesn't exist if we look at the data. It's a narrative based on a few anecdotes, not a scientifically proven fact. Once every team figures out the optimal starting procedure for them and the drivers get used to it, my guess is there won't be a big difference between teams.

I don't think the data is that accurate. Drivers had different amount of fuel, different tires and/or engine modes. Anyone who was on a high fuel run would launch much slower than a driver that just finished qualy sims.

I do agree that the differences are exaggerated and that we will likely see very similar launches from most of the teams and drivers. Probably with more mistakes but I don't believe we will see a big long term advantage in launches for any team.

[mzso]

Cars are traction limited, but all cars do not have the same traction limit. It is a property of the car's design. Haas and Ferrari are using the same rear suspension. Ferrari's "smaller" turbo is helping them, but Mercedes and Mclaren have the same turbo. In my opinion, it can't be as simple as gear ratios.

They pretty much, do before downforce gets significant. Such as when starting. (assuming the same tire compounds)

[AR3-GP]

Because they were too constant, both in pace and number of laps. There was also very little pace drift from stint to stint. It seemed like they were trying their best to not show any representative running.

If you think they were on full fuel for those runs, then they’re pretty much a second clear on everyone. Seems a bit too much to be true.

Mercedes is demonstrating the same thing in FP2 now.

[Emag]

Because they were too constant, both in pace and number of laps. There was also very little pace drift from stint to stint. It seemed like they were trying their best to not show any representative running.

If you think they were on full fuel for those runs, then they’re pretty much a second clear on everyone. Seems a bit too much to be true.

Mercedes is demonstrating the same thing in FP2 now.

Last runs were a bit all over the place to be fair. Oscar, Lewis and Charles (Lando as well, but he was on a weird plan so not representative), had laps dip into the 23s at the end there, so I doubt they're really 1.5s off.
George was almost 1s per lap faster than Kimi on his run as well before he started falling off at the end right before the VSC, so I don't think everyone else was on a proper long run.

In any case, I wouldn't be surprised if Mercedes turns out to have a 0.5s pace advantage at the moment.

[AR3-GP]

Because they were too constant, both in pace and number of laps. There was also very little pace drift from stint to stint. It seemed like they were trying their best to not show any representative running.

If you think they were on full fuel for those runs, then they’re pretty much a second clear on everyone. Seems a bit too much to be true.

Mercedes is demonstrating the same thing in FP2 now.

Last runs were a bit all over the place to be fair. Oscar, Lewis and Charles (Lando as well, but he was on a weird plan so not representative), had laps dip into the 23s at the end there, so I doubt they're really 1.5s off.
George was almost 1s per lap faster than Kimi on his run as well before he started falling off at the end right before the VSC, so I don't think everyone else was on a proper long run.

In any case, I wouldn't be surprised if Mercedes turns out to have a 0.5s pace advantage at the moment.

Sky is now saying they've been told by Mclaren and Ferrari that they think Mercedes has 1 second per lap.

[f1isgood]

Mercedes is demonstrating the same thing in FP2 now.

Last runs were a bit all over the place to be fair. Oscar, Lewis and Charles (Lando as well, but he was on a weird plan so not representative), had laps dip into the 23s at the end there, so I doubt they're really 1.5s off.
George was almost 1s per lap faster than Kimi on his run as well before he started falling off at the end right before the VSC, so I don't think everyone else was on a proper long run.

In any case, I wouldn't be surprised if Mercedes turns out to have a 0.5s pace advantage at the moment.

Sky is now saying they've been told by Mclaren and Ferrari that they think Mercedes has 1 second per lap.

Ferrari I can understand since Mercedes have the most legal engine. What's the deal with McLaren?

Definitely a lie.

[Emag]

Mercedes is demonstrating the same thing in FP2 now.

Last runs were a bit all over the place to be fair. Oscar, Lewis and Charles (Lando as well, but he was on a weird plan so not representative), had laps dip into the 23s at the end there, so I doubt they're really 1.5s off.
George was almost 1s per lap faster than Kimi on his run as well before he started falling off at the end right before the VSC, so I don't think everyone else was on a proper long run.

In any case, I wouldn't be surprised if Mercedes turns out to have a 0.5s pace advantage at the moment.

Sky is now saying they've been told by Mclaren and Ferrari that they think Mercedes has 1 second per lap.

Welp what can I say. Impressive I guess. Hopefully they manage to claw some of that throughout the season.

[AR3-GP]

Last runs were a bit all over the place to be fair. Oscar, Lewis and Charles (Lando as well, but he was on a weird plan so not representative), had laps dip into the 23s at the end there, so I doubt they're really 1.5s off.
George was almost 1s per lap faster than Kimi on his run as well before he started falling off at the end right before the VSC, so I don't think everyone else was on a proper long run.

In any case, I wouldn't be surprised if Mercedes turns out to have a 0.5s pace advantage at the moment.

Sky is now saying they've been told by Mclaren and Ferrari that they think Mercedes has 1 second per lap.

Welp what can I say. Impressive I guess. Hopefully they manage to claw some of that throughout the season.

It sheds a completely different light on the pre-season times. Mercedes was doing full fuel runs in the 2nd week.

[mzso]

Nah, only 8 tenths.

[AR3-GP]

Nah, only 8 tenths.

In qualy trim. Gap will get bigger in race trim because the recoverable energy limit increases from 7MJ to 8MJ and Mercedes is more efficient at recovering this energy.