2026 Japanese Grand Prix - Suzuka, March 27 - 29

[DJ Downforce]

F1technical is site for purists

you should visit some sites recommended by your influencers who start every sentence with 'o my god'

If you feel a F1 car with 600hp for 80 sec of a 88 sec lap exciting, pls enjoy

Even a F2 car has more hp

Do the "purists" prefer to watch GE boats which stay in the same position they qualified all race? Drs was just as artificial as the battery management.

I fully agree that these regs aren't perfect especially qualifying but it seems some people are just complaining for the sake of it.

No. In previous regs, it required a certain amount of skill to follow in the dirty air to be within the 1s window, to use DRS on the straight. It required a certain amount of skill to 'deny' the 1s window to stay in the lead, even if the chasing car gets closer in the slipstream in the straight.
With current regs, only 'overtake mode' requires the above skillset to use/deny the advantage in the straight. However, superior/inferior charging/discharging via better S/W or illegal ICE , doesn't require 'driver skill' in the rest of the track until reaching the straight. There is even 'boost mode' that's a 'DRS whenever I want' in any part of the track.
They are chalk and cheese.

And my point is that the purists could discuss this in a separate thread...?

why ? why do you keep insisting on separate threads for things you dont like to read ? Just skip. No one is forcing you to read. Or if you like this formula so much that you hate comments criticizing it, come up with arguments to counter. Like you have done above. Otherwise just skip.

1. And with these regulations it takes skill and iq to work out the best places to use boost etc. Drivers with more pace still have the chance to get out of the 1s range from the car behind to lessen the chance of an overtake. Im a ferrari fan but people need to accept Mercedes did a better job with the ICE and focus on catching up, not hailing it illegal and complaining...

2. Because the last race thread was the exact same, it gets tiresome reading the same complaints every week when the point of the thread is the 2026 Japanese grand prix, not the 2026 car complaint thread.

[DJ Downforce]

Cruising in the corners and drag racing on the straights, can we even call that racing?

It's better than anything we've had recently. There's been maybe 20 overtakes a race in the GE era. Most of the time less

Don’t call this racing. If overtaking is really the only thing you are looking for you were following the wrong sport.

lol, F1 must be the only fanbase where you are told by "purists" what and what not to enjoy.

I'm sure a lot of us were bored by the 2023 dominance or the lack of on track action during the last 2 years but we sucked it up and tried to enjoy it. Now it's time for others to do the same in my opinion....

[De Wet]

Do the "purists" prefer to watch GE boats which stay in the same position they qualified all race? Drs was just as artificial as the battery management.

I fully agree that these regs aren't perfect especially qualifying but it seems some people are just complaining for the sake of it.

And my point is that the purists could discuss this in a separate thread...?

No it wasn't because DRS was equal for all cars, with this horror show it's more like a lottery.

The point is that the drs was artificial racing too. You pressed a button to close the gap.

The GE racing post 2023 was just boring. I bet there will be a lot more overtakes at the 2026 Japanese Grand Prix compared to last year's event here.

Feel free to unblock me on Twitter to discuss further

To me Active Aero = DRS.

[LeQuick]

It's better than anything we've had recently. There's been maybe 20 overtakes a race in the GE era. Most of the time less

Don’t call this racing. If overtaking is really the only thing you are looking for you were following the wrong sport.

lol, F1 must be the only fanbase where you are told by "purists" what and what not to enjoy.

I'm sure a lot of us were bored by the 2023 dominance or the lack of on track action during the last 2 years but we sucked it up and tried to enjoy it. Now it's time for others to do the same in my opinion....

But you are only "enjoying" things because you feel your driver has found a resurgence. If he and his team were nowhere I suspect you would have a different opinion on these regs.

[PlatinumZealot]

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HCz1WaiXIAA ... me=900x900

This chart really doesn’t make sense without accounting for length of circuit, or more accurately how much of the circuit is power limited.

Austria looks worse than Belgium here, but I guarantee you it will be much worse in Spa.

Suzuka is going to be a bad circuit for energy. It’s long and lacks braking zones. The straights come consecutively with little ability to recharge in between. By the time they hit T1 they will be completely depleted (race), and so will be forced to spend their time up until T11 recharging the battery. Basically they will be harvesting and tyre saving on the iconic parts of the track whilst deploying on the flat bits.

Spa has a huge downhill section great for recharging.

[Badger]

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HCz1WaiXIAA ... me=900x900

This chart really doesn’t make sense without accounting for length of circuit, or more accurately how much of the circuit is power limited.

Austria looks worse than Belgium here, but I guarantee you it will be much worse in Spa.

Suzuka is going to be a bad circuit for energy. It’s long and lacks braking zones. The straights come consecutively with little ability to recharge in between. By the time they hit T1 they will be completely depleted (race), and so will be forced to spend their time up until T11 recharging the battery. Basically they will be harvesting and tyre saving on the iconic parts of the track whilst deploying on the flat bits.

Spa has a huge downhill section great for recharging.

That's a good one

[PlatinumZealot]

Can we please not have a thread full of complaints again. Perhaps a separate thread can be made for that? Or these people who hate this formula so much could stop watching for a while?

Agreed. It's boring, it pointless and it's littering the place and diluting the real discussions.

[AR3-GP]

Another 1 stop race, but the lateral energy in the tires is very high. I've been thinking since we are in this anything goes era, why not allow the cars that stop more than once to have a higher recovery limit from then onwards? So they can go faster to make up the pitstop delta. It's a way to diversify strategies when you can't increase the speed limit of the pitlane. This is assuming that a higher recovery limit allows you to go faster.

[Just_a_fan]

Another 1 stop race, but the lateral energy in the tires is very high. I've been thinking since we are in this anything goes era, why not allow the cars that stop more than once to have a higher recovery limit from then onwards? So they can go faster to make up the pitstop delta. It's a way to diversify strategies when you can't increase the speed limit of the pitlane. This is assuming that a higher recovery limit allows you to go faster.

Whilst the idea is interesting, the teams generally gravitate to the fastest solution, which means everyone will either do one stop or two. If it's close they would likely choose one stop because, all things being equal, pit stops are risky.

[langedweil]

Another 1 stop race, but the lateral energy in the tires is very high. I've been thinking since we are in this anything goes era, why not allow the cars that stop more than once to have a higher recovery limit from then onwards? So they can go faster to make up the pitstop delta. It's a way to diversify strategies when you can't increase the speed limit of the pitlane. This is assuming that a higher recovery limit allows you to go faster.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HEKchCrXsAA ... name=large

Good luck with tuning that ..

[Stu]

In my fantasy F1 predictions I have LH for the win & CL for pole, just something about how the Ferrari has the beating of Mercedes through every corner so far this year; a combination of downforce, ride height and less lag (from the smaller turbo).

[AR3-GP]

I don't know how it would end up it feels like the set of toggles that are available could help the pitstop issue. This is mostly a thought experiment.

[AR3-GP]

In my fantasy F1 predictions I have LH for the win & CL for pole, just something about how the Ferrari has the beating of Mercedes through every corner so far this year; a combination of downforce, ride height and less lag (from the smaller turbo).

I'm not sold. Whatever time Ferrari gains in the corners will be lost in the back half of the circuit when Mercedes deploys for longer. It's not a good idea to race through the corners of S1. You want to make time for harvesting whether that is by delaying throttle to get part-throttle harvest or superclipping.

I would change my opinion if Ferrari gets the macarena wing to work. I think there's a lot of laptime in that because it increases energy efficiency.

[AR3-GP]

53 lap race. 1 stint on medium, and last stint on hards.

[DJ Downforce]

Don’t call this racing. If overtaking is really the only thing you are looking for you were following the wrong sport.

lol, F1 must be the only fanbase where you are told by "purists" what and what not to enjoy.

I'm sure a lot of us were bored by the 2023 dominance or the lack of on track action during the last 2 years but we sucked it up and tried to enjoy it. Now it's time for others to do the same in my opinion....

But you are only "enjoying" things because you feel your driver has found a resurgence. If he and his team were nowhere I suspect you would have a different opinion on these regs.

Here we go again with people telling me and others why we're enjoying things

The racing up and down the field has been great, it's nothing to do with my "driver" you claim I support...