Straight mode 2026 Australian GP

[AR3-GP]

It certainly won’t be just the DRS zones, these were usually comparatively short to avoid giving a huge advantage to the following car

As SLM has nothing to with giving any advantage, and is merely to save energy, it will be available for the whole length of any straight it is used on

I assume the length of the straight will be a key driver in deciding, and also how straight the straight is… because some zones will curve slight too on some tracks like they did with DRS, I expect

I guess there are two reasons for restricting its use, firstly, obviously safety, otherwise drivers will be taking risks to gain an advantage, and secondly, as the system requires activation markers because of this, maybe Formula One are limited in to the number of sections they are able to have

Yeah, how will these markers work? The SLM is automatic but need some thing to trigger it from the track to open and close.

Why are F1 journalists so lame in their coverage? they are only writing crap about MBS and cant write one article on F1 tech other than bitching about FIA's inability to name the modes

SLM is not automatic. It is driver activated. There is a much bigger driver workload in 2026. Activating the SLM and going back to corner mode on every single lap, in every single straight, as well as using the energy management, brake bias, and all the other settings that are adjusted.

I can see a scenario where driver crashes because they forget to go back to corner mode.

[dialtone]

It certainly won’t be just the DRS zones, these were usually comparatively short to avoid giving a huge advantage to the following car

As SLM has nothing to with giving any advantage, and is merely to save energy, it will be available for the whole length of any straight it is used on

I assume the length of the straight will be a key driver in deciding, and also how straight the straight is… because some zones will curve slight too on some tracks like they did with DRS, I expect

I guess there are two reasons for restricting its use, firstly, obviously safety, otherwise drivers will be taking risks to gain an advantage, and secondly, as the system requires activation markers because of this, maybe Formula One are limited in to the number of sections they are able to have

Yeah, how will these markers work? The SLM is automatic but need some thing to trigger it from the track to open and close.

Why are F1 journalists so lame in their coverage? they are only writing crap about MBS and cant write one article on F1 tech other than bitching about FIA's inability to name the modes

SLM is not automatic. It is driver activated. There is a much bigger driver workload in 2026. Activating the SLM and going back to corner mode on every single lap, in every single straight, as well as using the energy management, brake bias, and all the other settings that are adjusted.

I can see a scenario where driver crashes because they forget to go back to corner mode.

That scenario is impossible.

The deactivation is the same as last year and all the years prior, press the brake and it closes.

[AR3-GP]

Yeah, how will these markers work? The SLM is automatic but need some thing to trigger it from the track to open and close.

Why are F1 journalists so lame in their coverage? they are only writing crap about MBS and cant write one article on F1 tech other than bitching about FIA's inability to name the modes

SLM is not automatic. It is driver activated. There is a much bigger driver workload in 2026. Activating the SLM and going back to corner mode on every single lap, in every single straight, as well as using the energy management, brake bias, and all the other settings that are adjusted.

I can see a scenario where driver crashes because they forget to go back to corner mode.

That scenario is impossible.

The deactivation is the same as last year and all the years prior, press the brake and it closes.

This was removed from the regulations.




Not all activation zones will have a brake zone at the end. Exit of La Source at Spa before Eau Rouge doesn't have braking.

[dialtone]

SLM is not automatic. It is driver activated. There is a much bigger driver workload in 2026. Activating the SLM and going back to corner mode on every single lap, in every single straight, as well as using the energy management, brake bias, and all the other settings that are adjusted.

I can see a scenario where driver crashes because they forget to go back to corner mode.

That scenario is impossible.

The deactivation is the same as last year and all the years prior, press the brake and it closes.

This was removed from the regulations.




Not all activation zones will have a brake zone at the end. Exit of La Source at Spa before Eau Rouge doesn't have braking.

I think that pink erasing comes from the 2023 document.

The official document doesn’t have erasing and while it may still be like that, I’d rather see the final version.

I can check later as of right now I’m preparing brunch.

[AR3-GP]

That scenario is impossible.

The deactivation is the same as last year and all the years prior, press the brake and it closes.

This was removed from the regulations.

https://i.postimg.cc/YCZD6Qvy/image.png


Not all activation zones will have a brake zone at the end. Exit of La Source at Spa before Eau Rouge doesn't have braking.

I think that pink erasing comes from the 2023 document.

The official document doesn’t have erasing and while it may still be like that, I’d rather see the final version.

I can check later as of right now I’m preparing brunch.

The screenshot is from the latest revision of the sporting regulations. Markups are included so that teams know what has changed.

[FittingMechanics]

You can find the latest regulations at this link: https://www.fia.com/regulation/category/110

AR3-GP is right, there is no clause that says the active aero has to close on braking or liftoff.

In fact, what is quite puzzling to me, it says nothing about needing to close active aero at all. It just says that there will be specified Activation Zones, that the start will be marked by a signage on at least one side of the circuit.

There is no specificity about whether active aero can remain active AFTER the activation zone, or when it needs to close. By my reading this almost sounds like you can activate it in the activation zone and then keep it on? Maybe the idea is to always put them before there is a significant braking zone or a high downforce part of the circuit so the fastest way will be to drop back into corner mode.

But I have to say I am very surprised they are not mandating dropping into corner mode at the end of the zones. This could lead to high speed crashes when drivers attempt to stay in it.

Maybe they can mitigate that by putting a next activation zone immediately after the corner, so there is little point in risking a crash when you can just activate it after the corner.

[hollus]

Thi is actually quite amazing. The championship starts in less than 2 month and the teams literally do not know the nature of the competion!

You would not leave it unknown how wide your F1 car can be.
You would not leave it unknown how large a soccer goal is going to be. 8 yards, 10 yards? Same same...
You would not change the weight of a basketball the week before game 1.

But here we are not knowing if there will be 1-2 km extra in low drag zones in all the curcuits, and I mean all.
There are extremely obvious design compromises made for this low drag "gift", with rear wings made not for optimum performance but for the optimum compromise betweenboth states, low drag and high drag. And this compromise is baked in for a lot of the season and in certain ways (engine covers, placement of cooling) presumably for the whole season.
But we (and presumably the teams) don't know if that split between low and high drag modes is going to be like 20:80 or like 40:60.

A-ma-zing, unless teams know something we don't know.

[Badger]

If there is a specified activation zone that zone has an end. Presumably the FIA will position the end of the zone far enough away from the corners that we won’t have cars entering corners with them open. Once you pass that line the wings automatically close.

My guess as to the reason they don’t want rules on automatic closing for off-throttle or brakes is that there will be corners like Blanchimont and 130R that will be possible to do with the wing open with a slight lift or touch of the brakes.

Realistically I do think they will close on the brakes though. It’s a good safety feature if you need to suddenly stop on the straight.

[FittingMechanics]

If there is a specified activation zone that zone has an end. Presumably the FIA will position the end of the zone far enough away from the corners that we won’t have cars entering corners with them open. Once you pass that line the wings automatically close.

My guess as to the reason they don’t want rules on automatic closing for off-throttle or brakes is that there will be corners like Blanchimont and 130R that will be possible to do with the wing open with a slight lift or touch of the brakes.

Realistically I do think they will close on the brakes though. It’s a good safety feature if you need to suddenly stop on the straight.

But do rules do not specify that active aero has to close or not work outside the zone. It only says that the driver can activate Straight Line Mode inside the Activation Zone. Nothing about closing, nothing about Straight Line Mode having to turn off outside the zone, etc. As you can see, the zone is not called "Straight Line Mode Zone".

But I would interpret it like you did, that the Straight Line Mode will have to close outside the zone but the rules do not specify that. It is possible that the teams have more information and that they know how this is intended to work.

[AR3-GP]

I don't really understand why F1 wants to see cars doing 350+ km/h on practically every circuit with even a medium sized straight. While safety has improved, the opportunity to have a crash that is dissipating a significant amount of energy is higher.

[lh13]

From official website:

The drivers will manually ‘open’ the wings for each zone. Similar to DRS now, drivers can manually 'close' it or the wings will automatically close if they brake or lift off the throttle. There is an additional auto turn-off feature for 2026, whereby for certain zones there is also a lap distance turn-off to ensure that drivers can’t try to take certain corners with the wings ‘open’.

That will prevent incidents like Jack Doohan's off at T1 in Suzuka in 2025.

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/arti ... cIpGzoWkY0

[the EDGE]

I don't really understand why F1 wants to see cars doing 350+ km/h on practically every circuit with even a medium sized straight. While safety has improved, the opportunity to have a crash that is dissipating a significant amount of energy is higher.

Basically to save face

This was a late edition to the rules when teams claim the cars would be no faster the F2

Also cars will achieve a higher top speed for the same energy expended, but will be able recover more as they will have to brake earlier

[GrizzleBoy]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62-XoCtGa9A

unlimited DRS usage in 2012 Qualifying observable in this video. It will be really interesting to see what of this will be available for straight mode this year.

Aw man I thought this was how it would be, at least for qualifying.

[FittingMechanics]

I don't really understand why F1 wants to see cars doing 350+ km/h on practically every circuit with even a medium sized straight. While safety has improved, the opportunity to have a crash that is dissipating a significant amount of energy is higher.

I'm sure you know this, the reason is that they want these cars to stay fast. To rely 50% on electrical energy you need low drag and we can't have slow cars in corners so they created Straight Line Mode.

From official website:

The drivers will manually ‘open’ the wings for each zone. Similar to DRS now, drivers can manually 'close' it or the wings will automatically close if they brake or lift off the throttle. There is an additional auto turn-off feature for 2026, whereby for certain zones there is also a lap distance turn-off to ensure that drivers can’t try to take certain corners with the wings ‘open’.

That will prevent incidents like Jack Doohan's off at T1 in Suzuka in 2025.

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/arti ... cIpGzoWkY0

But the rules (at least current public version) does not specify that. It would make sense to be auto turn off feature so we don't get people pushing their luck and crashing at huge speeds.

[Juzh]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the initial point of active aero to be automatically enabled and disabled as soon as a driver is in the activation zone? I seem to remember some drivers complaining about this, so I guess it was changed because of that?

In any case, sporting regs B7.1.1 - sections C and D do say it's driver operated:

The Driver Adjustable Bodywork will be considered to be fully activated when, following command from the driver, both the Front Wing Profiles and RW Flap are in their respective Straight-Line Mode, defined in Articles C3.10.10(n)(ii) and C3.11.6(c)(ii).

The Driver Adjustable Bodywork will be considered to be partially activated when, following command from the driver, the Front Wing Profiles are in their Straight-Line Mode position, and the RW Flap is in its Corner Mode position.