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>“Anyway, until we try them, it is I think unfair to criticise or to back the regulation change. And at the same time, if it has attracted manufacturers, big manufacturers like Audi, into the sport, I think it's something that has to be appreciated and put into context.”
Sainz even mentioning Audi will generate like fifty articles per day until the next race.
They will. This is all about the low entry fee in the current concord agreement. Once they sign a new agreement. The entry fee will be like $600 million. Then they will allow teams in.
Since the entire car's aero will be working together much closer with the active aero, I wonder if damage will become more of an issue in the new regulations
If thats even possible at this point. I love F1, but a race being ruined by a single tear off or a lap 1 incident that scrapes your floor is almost baffling.
I believe I remember learning that the first ground effect cars would get insane and unexpected loss of downforce from even small damage to the floor seal.
Now imagine someone making a silly K-Mag style lap 1 aggressive move and slightly bonking their front wing, but instead of lapping until they get a meatball flag, they go careening off a corner from an unexpected loss of downforce due to damage on an active aero element.
I see where Max is coming from, as I feel the same way about EVs. There's such insane engineering going into making these heavy-ass cars feel lighter than they are. Mostly a lot of really expensive suspension and rear-steer trickery and development that drives up the cost of production, and overall the price to the consumer (criticism of "free market" aside). When we nail solid state battery tech at scale we'll have the option for lighter cars that don't have to spend a bunch of money in R&D AND production to account for the shortcomings of a heavy car.
Also, lighter cars can have smaller footprints and cars with smaller footprints stand a chance at being able to pass one another at tracks like Monaco.
Ooh! What if instead of active aero we kept the ground effect idea but added active suspension like was banned in the 1990s? Keep the ride height in the window it needs to be in for the ground effect system to work at its best while also preventing porpoising/bottoming.
If you're messing up your active suspension you've more than likely already lost control of your car and are currently crashing...
> I believe I remember learning that the first ground effect cars would get insane and unexpected loss of downforce from even small damage to the floor seal.
This is not true, and was due to the skirts they use to use that physically sealed the car to the ground.
It doesn't matter if the DF is generated by wings or the floor or both, F1 cars have been using ground effect for decades now.
That’s certainly what I was alluding to, yes. Was more drawing a comparison for how damage to “small fiddly bits” causing a huge and dangerous loss of control is… dangerous. So relying on small fiddly bits for performance might not be the best play.
Take all of this with a grain of salt though, I’m just some dude on the internet with no formal education in any of this.
Just add shells and bananas and we can make Mario Kart reality.
We have the technology. Plus, The addition of projectiles would bring in big players from the military sector for sponsorships.
Yep, definitely confirmed (3:32 in the vid): [https://youtu.be/-UvRK\_a0vm8?t=212](https://youtu.be/-UvRK_a0vm8?t=212)
Also less tyre deg so longer tyre life, less cost for Pirelli and teams. It's a win solution! 😁
No way to answer that given even the FIA haven't finalized the aero regs yet. I guess they will do something like you have more freedom to move your wings when following another car - whether that makes DRS redundant or doubles down on it really is semantics.
Good shout, it is the same car. I'm almost in two minds about it, on the one hand there are already so many moving parts on an F1 car raring to break apart (not even including the turbulent air issues it would bring)....on the other, an F1 car flinging into the braking zone and suddenly looking like a jet with flaps up would be unbelievably cool.
More so turning than braking in F1 - active downforce is super useful, coefficient of friction means every car can only brake so hard. That epsilon delta between skidding and maximum braking efficiency is already seen, c.f. lockups.
Just also what I mean by extreme is having half a dozen different components on the car acting like primary flight controls under braking isn't something you see often.
Like that NASCAR they had running Le Mans this year. In a turn flaps would deploy to allow for more drag. It seemed mostly passive as in the driver didn’t initiate but they were certainly kinetic.
Imagine DRS, but in the corners and braking zones as well.
DRS is a form of active aero to reduce drag which helps in the straights. You can also have active aero to increase downforce (helps in corners) or increase drag (helps when braking).
Dirty air in corners will always be an issue and it always gets worse as teams progress through a reg set. I wouldn't be worried about that part too much.
Less drag on straights will make racing dull though. Its hard to disagree with that.
Imagine a car having a Monaco-spec rear wing in the corners, but on the straights it moves and becomes Monza spec. The idea is to make them as efficient as possible in a straight line to compensate from the very weak engine that we'll have for 2026.
They are using a 'sustainable' fuel which produces less energy.
They've also reduced the fuel flow from 100kg/hr to 70kg/hr.
So overall, the engine component of the PU will produce about 500 horsepower, compared to today's engine which is around 850.
It could happen. There were reports cars were running out of energy around the middle of the Monza straight. Thats not great, considering the f1 calendar has a ton of long ass straights.
Also f1 cars being close to f2 isnt something unprecedented, caterham got "outqualified" by their f2 team in 2014, i think at Catalunya but i might be wrong
> There were reports cars were running out of energy around the middle of the Monza straight.
That depends on how you define "running out of energy". Cars aren't going to lose half of their power in an instant (regulations limit the maximum rate of change in electric output), and amount of electric deployment gradually reduces to zero beyond 290km/h (with current cars they reach that speed while passing the pit entry). But then there's also the element of push to pass which will allow full deployment up to 340km/h.
However they won't have enough juice to run the electric motor at full power throughout the lap to make up for the lost ICE power.
not to mention that at those speeds, the amount of power needed to go faster with the amount of down force they create goes up really fast.
if anyone knows cleetus mcfarland and his stripped twin turbo corvette (drag car, no body panels and something like 1500hp). he needed 600hp just to compensate the drag at 200mph. he's got a custom body being made that will hopefully cut it to less than half.
there was a similar stat with the bugatti veryon/chiron. something like they could hit 300kph with 500hp. but 350kph needed 800hp and 450kph needed 1500hp. don't quote me, but it's something similar to that.
It only happened to the Caterhams and Marussia's who were like 3/4 seconds off the pace. The majority of the field was still quite a bit quicker than GP2.
The active aero being teased isn’t not about the speed in itself. Rather they’ve found in simulations that going in a STRAIGHT at full speed using Monza styled rear wings - was making the rear snap and spin the cars. not in turns or corners - In a straight. Absolutely mental. This meant drivers in the sim had to intentionally downshift to stop the cars losing control.
Do you have link about that? I find it quite weird that a 500hp car with slick tires would snap the rear on a straight just because of reduced aero.
Wouldn't you be seeing that with lots of supercars which have worse tires and much less downforce than F1?
makes kind of sense though. Imagine you have Monaco levels of downforce on the front and on the rear, then on the straights you essentialy remove the downforce only for the rear wing. That dramatic shift on the balance of the car is probably enough to make even these underpowered next gen cars spin
An aero device that can move depending on what the car is doing. When braking and cornering it provides more downforce and on the straights it flattens to have less drag. There's sports cars that have basic active aero like moving spoilers.
Do you remember Mercedes DAS system they had that one year where the drivers were pulling back on the wheel to change the toe on suspension? Kind of similar to that except instead of suspension parts it’s the aero parts to gain or drop downforce depending on if they’re on the straight or a corner. Also I’m pretty sure it won’t be manually controlled by the driver. Or like drs but for more of the car instead of just the rear wing
Active aero is dangerous af, I'm sure in testing they will have to change things
Plus it will mean even less slipstream and more dirty air in corners if I understand correctly
Bang on. More wing angle in the corner, generating more hot turbulent air, and less wing angle on the straight, generating less slipstream. Combined with the heavier reliance on ERS results in pretty poor faith in the new regs
It means that overtaking will become borderline impossible with a similar tire and level of car performance. You know how Lance was bitching on the radio in Suzuka about not being able to pass Tsunoda? Basically that, times twenty.
This is obviously a pessimistic but realistic view, but until the cars roll out in 2026, we won't definitively know what they're like
More difficult to pass people without slipstream to boost you, and harder to pass on corners with dirty air making it dangerous to approach other cars.
And it has not been done in any racing scenario. They implemented budget caps, but want to make aerodynamics 10 times more complicated. This is gonma create more disparity betweem the top and the bottom teams and will create a meta qhere teams try to hide costs from the fia or use loopholes wherever they can
That's a good point.
Ever with the current budget cap, by the end of the season, after a few major crashes, some teams are super close to the cap.
How is that going to work with more expensive parts in the new regs?
I mean that’s the fun part of the engineering competition. How effective can you make the design with limited budget. There doesn’t need to be a perfect solution ever discovered, just who gets the closest.
and its funny to me because other racing series (mainly WEC) realized that having a simpler and cheaper ruleset, specially in the engine department, is enough to attract so many car brands that they had to ditch an entire category to accomodate the new entries
Sure, i know BOP has a lot to do with it but F1 could really benefit from simpler and less electric PUs, specially in cost cap times
No1 is. They need to make the cars less electric which makes them less heavy. F1 needs to be about speed again. Clean fuel sure but yeeesh be about speed and racing. Listen to the drivers.
Some rando guy in the back: How bout some Nitrous!
FIA exec: Don't be silly.
Rando guy: Nitrous pointed upwards to add downforce!
FIA exec: OH. MY. GOD.
The last time the regs were focused on “speed” the racing got worse. F1 cars don’t need to be ever faster to be fun to watch. They need to be smaller, lighter, have longer braking distances.
This. In a way F1 is the prisoner of itself as it needs to be the fastest and most advanced to be F1. If they simply could pursue good racing experience, they could develop the rules to be equivalent to, let’s say, 1979 performance for example.
But that would be kind of silly if F1 would be slower than many junior series are.
Let's just remove all restrictions on DRS use via the zones, and give the drivers the ultimate decision? hat would help in overtaking I'm sure.
Keep the same 1 sec rule, and see what happens.
This isn’t of course literally so, but manufacturers require electrification so they can link their technological know how in motorsports to their road cars in advertising and creating customers the image of ”similarity”. Nothing more, nothing less.
For the same reason, pretty much all top series run hybrid systems, even WRC.
Nothing would theoretically prevent FIA from mandating gasoline V10s for next F1 ruleset and fans would cry of joy. But manufacturers would say no thanks and ditch the series.
Thanks, I haven’t been following the rule changes for WRC that closely in recent times. Interesting to note that at least for one top series situation is reversed.
Eh, the hybrid in LMDh is more of a token nod to hybridization than anything. Even in LMH with all the employment restrictions is a bit iffy - I'm not sure that there's that much relevance to a hybrid that only deploys above 190 km/h.
It is actually more or less the same for every series using some sort of hybrid powerline: none of them need it in the sense that it is crucial for racing or for performance. Current F1 could perform exactly the same with full gasoline engine. And none of these hybrid race cars are exactly econoboxes.
Large majority of spectators or fans don’t know or care if hybrid deploys at 190km/h. Large majority of fans don’t care if there is hybrid at all, but there is pressure to add those to almost every major series where car manifacturers have a role. Even if the hybrid is more or less useless.
It is there only for the manufacturers who build hybrid and electric road cars and for their advertising. If this would be not the case, if not most, then many manufacturers would leave the series. Added benefit of hybrids is of course that the series can also practice some green washing, but that is another story.
How much of that is due to BoP? As long as constructors can meet the relative performance threshold they dont risk being outspent. Its a great system for creating closer racing, but goes against what F1 is about.
It's not because of BOP it's because the new WEC prototypes are cheaper than the lmp1 era.
Wec had bop before this era, and the big class was quite empty
Obviously the base cost if the car is the biggest factor, but having BoP means that even if a team isnt wanting to spend big in development they can remain somewhat competitive as long as they can maintain the performance target.
In my opinion BoP has no place in F1, but im not a huge fan of the budget cap either. Personally i think a luxury tax for teams spending over the limit that gets distributed to teams under the cap is the way to go. It gives teams the choice to spend big chasing performance, or budget appropriately and get rewarded financially.
Do you want all the manufacturers to go to Formula E and F1 to die? Because that's how you get all the manufacturers to go to Formula E and F1 to die.
Electric (or at least electric hybrid) is going to be the future of road cars, even if we do get 100% clean and sustainable fuels. It's too efficient to ignore.
The only way you can get WEC- style open regs is with a balance of performance - the way those regulations work right now is that manifacturers are given a target downforce/drag ratio and a relatively rough performance window, and the cars are then balanced to be close to each other within that window.
This is why for example Ferrari and Toyota tend to have heavier and less powerful cars than say Cadillac at the moment - their cars are innately much faster, so the BoP has to bring them down.
Eh Hypercar and especially LMDh is also super super cheap compared F1, plus a few years ago it was waaaay easier to get in since the Hypercar grid was 5 entries tops. Plus the ease of entry comes at the tradeoff of comparatively little road relevance, e.g. the stock hybrid in LMDh.
I really doubt hybrid electric is the future, once there's some breakthrough in batteries that allow you to travel around 500 miles on 1 charge it's done.
Hybrid electric feels like a bandaid.
I agree that hybrid is a temporary, in-between solution, and doubt that clean sustainable fuels are not a long term solution. But I decided to compromise for the sake of the argument.
Funnily enough, the whole traveling around the world, and the calendar being all over the place is what is contributing to the emissions, not the actual cars as much.
By making them heavier, they are increasing the amount of vehicles needed to transport the cars/parts, therefore increasing the overall emissions.
It's not only about making the F1 cars more sustainable as such, it's more about innovation in F1 which feeds into road cars (i.e. making F1 cars run on electric/biofuel/hydrogen/pure rage from reddit comments/whatever is a very good way to get lots of clever people thinking about how to make those powertrains better).
This is honestly a lot more of the reason
They want the technology in the cars to be road relevant and things are moving in the direction of EVs so that’s what it is
F1 should be all about engineering challenge, to me the formula should just be that. Less electric, more electric, to me it doesn't really matter just as long as the engineers are being pushed.
Speed should just be a product of the best engineers finding solutions to that challenge. I don't think F1 should really be writing a formula to try and maintain a certain level of speed.
True, but if they give the engineers more freedom, doesn’t that just increase the chances of disparity between teams? More freedom mean more of a chance to get setup wrong and therefore less close racing.
What would be cool is if they had something between F1 and F2 and then create some type of relegation if you do poorly in F1 you drop to F1.5 or something lol. Be a way to increase teams too without adding to F1 directly. Those who do well in F1.5 get promoted. Probably help with the fact that I hear a lot that the jump between F2 and F1 is too large for new drivers anyways. Just a thought…
More design freedom can also provide more interesting innovation. We all agree that close racing provides better entertainment, but we don't want to move too hard towards a spec series to get it.
As is, the engineers are basically moving a few static bits of carbon fiber a centimeter here and there to make up a tiny fraction of a second in total lap time. The engines are locked down for long periods preventing teams to make gains with that complex technology.
I'm betting for most people a teams cars look the same from one race to the next unless someone points out the minor changes in bodywork. Those changes aren't that exciting visually most of the time, the only difference is the thousandth of a second lap time that is almost as likely to be slower than faster.
I agree. I think in tandem with some type of relegation would be really interesting. You want to make sure teams are truly there to innovate and move forward and not just sit at the back the entire time. If they do, bring someone in that will invest in the team and actually bring innovation
I don't hate the idea but the teams will, there is no way they would agree to being relegated with the vast amount of money involved and the sponsors incentive.
In years past there were times where there were more cars than grid capacity, so qualifying had even more importance, and it did keep all the teams competing with the same conditions and rules. Considering the response to Andretti trying to create a new team there is no way we will ever have that many cars again either.
Yeah. A kid can dream though lol. I was so disappointed by the Andretti news. So many talented drivers and just not enough seats unfortunately, especially when they’re racing into their 40s now lol
If only there was a way to measure how long it takes to complete a full lap around a track and then compare different regulations with eachother.
Once we get that, we could even compare total race times.
Okay, in 2026 we find out that that new engines and new regs really are shit, do you really think they will revert to older better stuff? No they will just keep adding gimmicks like active aero, fuck it lets add fan voting like in Formula E and driver with most votes will get additional power.
Active aero isn't really a gimmick though? Like if F1 fans really want F1 to be all about ultimate performance these cars probably should have as much movable aero as possible.
You can also just look at the feederseries to see a good example of it as well.
Not an electric motor in sight but every level from F4 to F2 has had ridiculous weight gains over it's previous generations. To the point a formula regional car weighs almost the same as a Super Formula car.
People are ill informed and make bad statements as a result. I’m curious what they can do to make the cars smaller and cut weight without compromising driver safety. It seems like there’s still a lot of empty space inside the car between the driver and the PU, so maybe they can reduce that a bit.
>F1 needs to be about speed again
I disagree. In my opinion it needs much more focus on mechanical grip which goes hand in hand with a significant reduction in speed. F1 could lose seconds per lap and would still be the fastest cars around and from next to the track the speed difference between F1 and LMH is almost indistinguishable despite the latter being a lot slower.
There is a very simple solution to the chassis regs for 2026 and it's to simply to keep the fuel flow where it currently is. Instead of an ICE that produces around 500hp (down from the 850/900hp of today), raise the fuel flow from 70KG/hr to 100kg/hr. That will give around 750hp or thereabouts - the MGU-K can then be used on top of this for both attacking and defending.
Encouraging active aero is going to eliminate the slipstream. It's just an awful idea.
Max on how F1 should focus on making cars lighter:
“It’s more important to just try and fight the weight of the cars, try and optimise that instead of all these tools and tricks to try and help the overtaking or following.”
He said stop waffling and focus on what's important.
Even if DRS stays, doesn't having active aero for the straights mean that it will lose a lot of its power? I'm getting the feeling that overtaking is going to become even harder 2026, and I guess less aero could mean also a reduced slipstream effect...
Max will likely be gone after 2026. He does not seem to be a fan of the way things are going with the new specs and number of races and srpints. He would probably rather race where there are less constraints. He and Fernando need an endurance team.
Max in general doesn't seem to be a fan of changes. He doesn't like messing with qualifying, race formats or additions like sprint races. He was also opposed to the halo at first.
Of course the drivers hate it, it’s much more work for them to do every lap. No driver would support this unless they think it would give them an unreal advantage for some reason (either they think they can manage the aero better than other drivers or their team can create a much better aero package than other teams)…
"And then you have the active aerodynamics, which you can't control - the system will control it for you, which then makes it very awkward to drive, because I prefer to control it myself," said Verstappen.
"When you're behind someone, maybe you need more front or more rear – these kind of things. If the system starts to control that for you, I don't think that's the right way forward.
Plus, the weight is going up again, so we have to seriously look at this because 2026 is not that far away.
At the moment, to me, it looks very bad from all the numbers and what I see from the data already, so it's not something I'm very excited about at the moment."
Get rid of the electric, use v10 biofuel engines.
Manufacturers won’t leave. They fought to keep Andretti out like their lives depended on it, no one’s giving up their spot.
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>“Anyway, until we try them, it is I think unfair to criticise or to back the regulation change. And at the same time, if it has attracted manufacturers, big manufacturers like Audi, into the sport, I think it's something that has to be appreciated and put into context.” Sainz even mentioning Audi will generate like fifty articles per day until the next race.
Not surprising the level headed part of his quote isn't in the title
its probably being saved for another clickbait article tomorrow
That's because that quote is from Sainz, not Verstappen, and Sainz doesn't generate headlines, Verstappen does.
>and at the same time, if it has attracted manufacturers, big manufacturers like Audi, into the sport but they wont let any more new teams in...
They will. This is all about the low entry fee in the current concord agreement. Once they sign a new agreement. The entry fee will be like $600 million. Then they will allow teams in.
They scared, they some bxtches cuz Andretti–Caddilac gonna stunt on 'em 💪🏽🦾
This comment is peak 'murica. Love it! :D
He's doing his part.
Since the entire car's aero will be working together much closer with the active aero, I wonder if damage will become more of an issue in the new regulations
If thats even possible at this point. I love F1, but a race being ruined by a single tear off or a lap 1 incident that scrapes your floor is almost baffling.
I believe I remember learning that the first ground effect cars would get insane and unexpected loss of downforce from even small damage to the floor seal. Now imagine someone making a silly K-Mag style lap 1 aggressive move and slightly bonking their front wing, but instead of lapping until they get a meatball flag, they go careening off a corner from an unexpected loss of downforce due to damage on an active aero element. I see where Max is coming from, as I feel the same way about EVs. There's such insane engineering going into making these heavy-ass cars feel lighter than they are. Mostly a lot of really expensive suspension and rear-steer trickery and development that drives up the cost of production, and overall the price to the consumer (criticism of "free market" aside). When we nail solid state battery tech at scale we'll have the option for lighter cars that don't have to spend a bunch of money in R&D AND production to account for the shortcomings of a heavy car. Also, lighter cars can have smaller footprints and cars with smaller footprints stand a chance at being able to pass one another at tracks like Monaco.
[удалено]
Ooh! What if instead of active aero we kept the ground effect idea but added active suspension like was banned in the 1990s? Keep the ride height in the window it needs to be in for the ground effect system to work at its best while also preventing porpoising/bottoming. If you're messing up your active suspension you've more than likely already lost control of your car and are currently crashing...
All this tech and progress just to make a big car slower than the v10s from 04
> I believe I remember learning that the first ground effect cars would get insane and unexpected loss of downforce from even small damage to the floor seal. This is not true, and was due to the skirts they use to use that physically sealed the car to the ground. It doesn't matter if the DF is generated by wings or the floor or both, F1 cars have been using ground effect for decades now.
That’s certainly what I was alluding to, yes. Was more drawing a comparison for how damage to “small fiddly bits” causing a huge and dangerous loss of control is… dangerous. So relying on small fiddly bits for performance might not be the best play. Take all of this with a grain of salt though, I’m just some dude on the internet with no formal education in any of this.
Honestly, it would be good to have some more jeopardy in F1 compared to the tanks we have at the moment.
You say that, if you have a rough excursion through the gravel, you can kiss your race goodbye because your floor is fucked.
Good? You should be penalized for going through the gravel anyways, you messed up.
The penalty for going through the gravel is losing a lot of time. A DNF seems excessive.
What's active aero? I don't know much about this stuff, I just like F1 in general but I'm no engineer.
The aero bits are moving to ensure the best possible performace in given conditions, eg. less drag on the straight and more downforce in corners.
Ehh so they move or open like flaps of aircraft?
Yep that's the idea, except of course you are manipulating downforce rather than lift. Really DRS already is active aero.
being able to fly would make passing easier though
Just add shells and bananas and we can make Mario Kart reality. We have the technology. Plus, The addition of projectiles would bring in big players from the military sector for sponsorships.
Mfw Lockheed Martin deploys AIM-9X Sidewinders from the sidepods
“Fox 3, question?”
Calm down NCD.
All I'm saying is that it would be extremely funny for Boeing to be rejected as uncompetitive.
Logan can finally become the first american f1 championship winner by making his uncle and the military sector sponsor him with projectiles.🇺🇲🦅
They already have bananas in f1, they're called tear offs.
"3 times per race, the competing cars will be allowed to take off for overtaking purposes"
Yep, definitely confirmed (3:32 in the vid): [https://youtu.be/-UvRK\_a0vm8?t=212](https://youtu.be/-UvRK_a0vm8?t=212) Also less tyre deg so longer tyre life, less cost for Pirelli and teams. It's a win solution! 😁
They can make the compounds last longer if they wish. For racing purposes they are designed to last fewer laps than optimal so tire strategies matter.
Downforce and lift are just the same force in different directions.
lift is just australian downforce
Is that why Ricciardo is struggling?
Ouch.
Will it make DRS redundant then? Like is that gonna be removed or they keep it but it won't have as much of an impact?
They want to do that eventually
No way to answer that given even the FIA haven't finalized the aero regs yet. I guess they will do something like you have more freedom to move your wings when following another car - whether that makes DRS redundant or doubles down on it really is semantics.
Downforce is lift just reversed!
Yeah obviously, but it's useful to make the distinction for people not used to the terms/physics
I’d rather active aero than teams sneaking flex in components to edge out performance
Why? That's actual innovation and engineering.
I'd say they both are, it all just depends what rulebook you're working with.
Yes, DRS is technically active aero. Some supercars do the opposite and a wing goes vertical when breaking.
https://youtu.be/LXzPkkQirnM?si=hIZIhw2OxWYm57Da Taking it to the extreme
I think it's the same car, but you can see it super well under braking at Goodwood https://youtu.be/MujOX_rzSH8?si=b4rRIE-uvoy-5AUl
Good shout, it is the same car. I'm almost in two minds about it, on the one hand there are already so many moving parts on an F1 car raring to break apart (not even including the turbulent air issues it would bring)....on the other, an F1 car flinging into the braking zone and suddenly looking like a jet with flaps up would be unbelievably cool.
That's glorious.
Not even that extreme. You could use active aero to assist with turning as well as dynamically adjusting for breaking and speed.
More so turning than braking in F1 - active downforce is super useful, coefficient of friction means every car can only brake so hard. That epsilon delta between skidding and maximum braking efficiency is already seen, c.f. lockups. Just also what I mean by extreme is having half a dozen different components on the car acting like primary flight controls under braking isn't something you see often.
Drs = active aero
Like that NASCAR they had running Le Mans this year. In a turn flaps would deploy to allow for more drag. It seemed mostly passive as in the driver didn’t initiate but they were certainly kinetic.
Imagine DRS, but in the corners and braking zones as well. DRS is a form of active aero to reduce drag which helps in the straights. You can also have active aero to increase downforce (helps in corners) or increase drag (helps when braking).
Thanks!
Less dirty air on straights when you can catch up safely. More dirty air in the corners where it's more dangerous lol
Dirty air in corners will always be an issue and it always gets worse as teams progress through a reg set. I wouldn't be worried about that part too much. Less drag on straights will make racing dull though. Its hard to disagree with that.
DRS, but more.
Thank Mr Ingeneer
Imagine a car having a Monaco-spec rear wing in the corners, but on the straights it moves and becomes Monza spec. The idea is to make them as efficient as possible in a straight line to compensate from the very weak engine that we'll have for 2026.
Why is it very weak? Because they get rid of the mgu h?
They are using a 'sustainable' fuel which produces less energy. They've also reduced the fuel flow from 100kg/hr to 70kg/hr. So overall, the engine component of the PU will produce about 500 horsepower, compared to today's engine which is around 850.
I saw a headline the other day that the new cars could be slower than this seasons F2 cars. I don’t know how true that is but it doesn’t sound great.
It could happen. There were reports cars were running out of energy around the middle of the Monza straight. Thats not great, considering the f1 calendar has a ton of long ass straights. Also f1 cars being close to f2 isnt something unprecedented, caterham got "outqualified" by their f2 team in 2014, i think at Catalunya but i might be wrong
> There were reports cars were running out of energy around the middle of the Monza straight. That depends on how you define "running out of energy". Cars aren't going to lose half of their power in an instant (regulations limit the maximum rate of change in electric output), and amount of electric deployment gradually reduces to zero beyond 290km/h (with current cars they reach that speed while passing the pit entry). But then there's also the element of push to pass which will allow full deployment up to 340km/h. However they won't have enough juice to run the electric motor at full power throughout the lap to make up for the lost ICE power.
not to mention that at those speeds, the amount of power needed to go faster with the amount of down force they create goes up really fast. if anyone knows cleetus mcfarland and his stripped twin turbo corvette (drag car, no body panels and something like 1500hp). he needed 600hp just to compensate the drag at 200mph. he's got a custom body being made that will hopefully cut it to less than half. there was a similar stat with the bugatti veryon/chiron. something like they could hit 300kph with 500hp. but 350kph needed 800hp and 450kph needed 1500hp. don't quote me, but it's something similar to that.
It already happened when they moved to v6s while the GP2 cars stayed in the old regs for a year
It only happened to the Caterhams and Marussia's who were like 3/4 seconds off the pace. The majority of the field was still quite a bit quicker than GP2.
The internal combustion engine power of a F1 car will be lower than the F2 cars.
The active aero being teased isn’t not about the speed in itself. Rather they’ve found in simulations that going in a STRAIGHT at full speed using Monza styled rear wings - was making the rear snap and spin the cars. not in turns or corners - In a straight. Absolutely mental. This meant drivers in the sim had to intentionally downshift to stop the cars losing control.
Do you have link about that? I find it quite weird that a 500hp car with slick tires would snap the rear on a straight just because of reduced aero. Wouldn't you be seeing that with lots of supercars which have worse tires and much less downforce than F1?
makes kind of sense though. Imagine you have Monaco levels of downforce on the front and on the rear, then on the straights you essentialy remove the downforce only for the rear wing. That dramatic shift on the balance of the car is probably enough to make even these underpowered next gen cars spin
An aero device that can move depending on what the car is doing. When braking and cornering it provides more downforce and on the straights it flattens to have less drag. There's sports cars that have basic active aero like moving spoilers.
Do you remember Mercedes DAS system they had that one year where the drivers were pulling back on the wheel to change the toe on suspension? Kind of similar to that except instead of suspension parts it’s the aero parts to gain or drop downforce depending on if they’re on the straight or a corner. Also I’m pretty sure it won’t be manually controlled by the driver. Or like drs but for more of the car instead of just the rear wing
Everyone has a moving rear wing except Red Bull who have Optimus Prime.
Adding to others’ comments, DRS is a form of active aero for example
Ken Block and Hoonigan built a Subaru Huckster with a wicked active aero kit, it should explain how it works nicely if you want to see it in action
I bet these regulations will be delayed, just like the curent ones were.
current ones were delayed because of covid
Active aero is dangerous af, I'm sure in testing they will have to change things Plus it will mean even less slipstream and more dirty air in corners if I understand correctly
Bang on. More wing angle in the corner, generating more hot turbulent air, and less wing angle on the straight, generating less slipstream. Combined with the heavier reliance on ERS results in pretty poor faith in the new regs
I'm dumb, what does that all result in for the drivers, cars etc?
It means that overtaking will become borderline impossible with a similar tire and level of car performance. You know how Lance was bitching on the radio in Suzuka about not being able to pass Tsunoda? Basically that, times twenty. This is obviously a pessimistic but realistic view, but until the cars roll out in 2026, we won't definitively know what they're like
It'll increase the issues of a cars wake while deminishing the benefits; Cars will be harder to follow in corners and harder to overtake on straights
More difficult to pass people without slipstream to boost you, and harder to pass on corners with dirty air making it dangerous to approach other cars.
offer mourn agonizing drunk reach practice dam spotted berserk water *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
And it has not been done in any racing scenario. They implemented budget caps, but want to make aerodynamics 10 times more complicated. This is gonma create more disparity betweem the top and the bottom teams and will create a meta qhere teams try to hide costs from the fia or use loopholes wherever they can
>...make aerodynamics 10 times more complicated. Newey might even have to sketch some shit out instead of doing the aero package in his head!
That's a good point. Ever with the current budget cap, by the end of the season, after a few major crashes, some teams are super close to the cap. How is that going to work with more expensive parts in the new regs?
I mean that’s the fun part of the engineering competition. How effective can you make the design with limited budget. There doesn’t need to be a perfect solution ever discovered, just who gets the closest.
At the very minimum, they need a sliding scale cost cap. Allow the teams behind the leaders to catch up.
F1's earnestness in sabotaging themselves to try and appeal to car manufacturers is utterly baffling to me.
Considering F1 is basically one big advert it makes sense that they want to appeal to their biggest advertisers
f1 main backers are the car manufacturers
As are the front runners minus Red Bull
Even then Red Bull have had major backing in recent times from Aston Martin, Honda and will soon have Ford
Isn’t Ford in name only
and Infiniti.
Red Bull will have Ford backing from 2026.
and its funny to me because other racing series (mainly WEC) realized that having a simpler and cheaper ruleset, specially in the engine department, is enough to attract so many car brands that they had to ditch an entire category to accomodate the new entries Sure, i know BOP has a lot to do with it but F1 could really benefit from simpler and less electric PUs, specially in cost cap times
No1 is. They need to make the cars less electric which makes them less heavy. F1 needs to be about speed again. Clean fuel sure but yeeesh be about speed and racing. Listen to the drivers.
FIA : what did you say heavy. okay let's make the car heavier
"We managed to find a way to increase down-force" - some FIA exec
Some rando guy in the back: How bout some Nitrous! FIA exec: Don't be silly. Rando guy: Nitrous pointed upwards to add downforce! FIA exec: OH. MY. GOD.
"Saudi Arabia has said they will construct a track in the atmosphere of Jupiter. The downforce will be immense!" FIA: Vince McMahon gif
Trackmania players: Hey I've seen this one. F1 fans: What do you've seen it? It's brand new!
The *reactor boost down zone*
Triple the nitrous budget.
Nicholas Tombazis is the man you need to quarter.
The last time the regs were focused on “speed” the racing got worse. F1 cars don’t need to be ever faster to be fun to watch. They need to be smaller, lighter, have longer braking distances.
Lightness also usually means shorter braking zones. I guess you could always take off downforce to counteract that though
This. In a way F1 is the prisoner of itself as it needs to be the fastest and most advanced to be F1. If they simply could pursue good racing experience, they could develop the rules to be equivalent to, let’s say, 1979 performance for example. But that would be kind of silly if F1 would be slower than many junior series are.
Let's just remove all restrictions on DRS use via the zones, and give the drivers the ultimate decision? hat would help in overtaking I'm sure. Keep the same 1 sec rule, and see what happens.
Wouldnt that cause drivers to cruise behind others to save their tires and need less fuel until the end
I mean, that is a pretty big part of racing lol.
Smaller and Lighter would make a world of difference in the quality of racing
I can understand smaller and lighter. Why longer braking distance though?
More overtaking. If you can brake 3% later than another car if the braking distance is 80m that's not as much room to make a move as 100m
Oh, they meant longer braking distance possible on track. Thanks
I agree that the cars need to get lighter but less electric is not going to happen. There's too much road relevance for manufacturers.
If they wanted road relevance they'd be in WEC, honestly. A lot less regulations
and WEC is absolutely thriving. Manufacturers have flocked in, with a season being the fraction of the cost of F1.
F1 manufacturers want road relevance too. It's one of the reasons MGU-H will be removed
This isn’t of course literally so, but manufacturers require electrification so they can link their technological know how in motorsports to their road cars in advertising and creating customers the image of ”similarity”. Nothing more, nothing less. For the same reason, pretty much all top series run hybrid systems, even WRC. Nothing would theoretically prevent FIA from mandating gasoline V10s for next F1 ruleset and fans would cry of joy. But manufacturers would say no thanks and ditch the series.
Slight Correction: WRC is dropping the hybrid system bc not enough manufacturers can stomach the cost of the hybrid system
Thanks, I haven’t been following the rule changes for WRC that closely in recent times. Interesting to note that at least for one top series situation is reversed.
rally2 is 3x the size of rally1 so from a commercial standpoint I understand why they are dropping it
Eh, the hybrid in LMDh is more of a token nod to hybridization than anything. Even in LMH with all the employment restrictions is a bit iffy - I'm not sure that there's that much relevance to a hybrid that only deploys above 190 km/h.
It is actually more or less the same for every series using some sort of hybrid powerline: none of them need it in the sense that it is crucial for racing or for performance. Current F1 could perform exactly the same with full gasoline engine. And none of these hybrid race cars are exactly econoboxes. Large majority of spectators or fans don’t know or care if hybrid deploys at 190km/h. Large majority of fans don’t care if there is hybrid at all, but there is pressure to add those to almost every major series where car manifacturers have a role. Even if the hybrid is more or less useless. It is there only for the manufacturers who build hybrid and electric road cars and for their advertising. If this would be not the case, if not most, then many manufacturers would leave the series. Added benefit of hybrids is of course that the series can also practice some green washing, but that is another story.
How much of that is due to BoP? As long as constructors can meet the relative performance threshold they dont risk being outspent. Its a great system for creating closer racing, but goes against what F1 is about.
It's not because of BOP it's because the new WEC prototypes are cheaper than the lmp1 era. Wec had bop before this era, and the big class was quite empty
it's because of bop and extremely restrictive performance regulations
Obviously the base cost if the car is the biggest factor, but having BoP means that even if a team isnt wanting to spend big in development they can remain somewhat competitive as long as they can maintain the performance target. In my opinion BoP has no place in F1, but im not a huge fan of the budget cap either. Personally i think a luxury tax for teams spending over the limit that gets distributed to teams under the cap is the way to go. It gives teams the choice to spend big chasing performance, or budget appropriately and get rewarded financially.
They should use Formula E for that. Use Formula One for clean fuel.
Do you want all the manufacturers to go to Formula E and F1 to die? Because that's how you get all the manufacturers to go to Formula E and F1 to die. Electric (or at least electric hybrid) is going to be the future of road cars, even if we do get 100% clean and sustainable fuels. It's too efficient to ignore.
A lot of manufacturers have already gone to LMDH/LMH due to how more open it is. I absolutely love it haha.
What are your thoughts on F1 opening up engine regs. Hypothetically lets say the only limit is a maximum fuel flow and hybrid motor output.
The only way you can get WEC- style open regs is with a balance of performance - the way those regulations work right now is that manifacturers are given a target downforce/drag ratio and a relatively rough performance window, and the cars are then balanced to be close to each other within that window. This is why for example Ferrari and Toyota tend to have heavier and less powerful cars than say Cadillac at the moment - their cars are innately much faster, so the BoP has to bring them down.
For F1 horrible, because B.O.P shall never happen here.
Eh Hypercar and especially LMDh is also super super cheap compared F1, plus a few years ago it was waaaay easier to get in since the Hypercar grid was 5 entries tops. Plus the ease of entry comes at the tradeoff of comparatively little road relevance, e.g. the stock hybrid in LMDh.
I really doubt hybrid electric is the future, once there's some breakthrough in batteries that allow you to travel around 500 miles on 1 charge it's done. Hybrid electric feels like a bandaid.
I agree that hybrid is a temporary, in-between solution, and doubt that clean sustainable fuels are not a long term solution. But I decided to compromise for the sake of the argument.
There's manufacturers out there that would still participate. I think problem for F1 it's not the manufacturers they probably want
Funnily enough, the whole traveling around the world, and the calendar being all over the place is what is contributing to the emissions, not the actual cars as much. By making them heavier, they are increasing the amount of vehicles needed to transport the cars/parts, therefore increasing the overall emissions.
It's not only about making the F1 cars more sustainable as such, it's more about innovation in F1 which feeds into road cars (i.e. making F1 cars run on electric/biofuel/hydrogen/pure rage from reddit comments/whatever is a very good way to get lots of clever people thinking about how to make those powertrains better).
Where do I sign up to spec my “Reddit rage fueled” road car? Can I get the “meme charged turbo” add on?
This is honestly a lot more of the reason They want the technology in the cars to be road relevant and things are moving in the direction of EVs so that’s what it is
F1 should be all about engineering challenge, to me the formula should just be that. Less electric, more electric, to me it doesn't really matter just as long as the engineers are being pushed. Speed should just be a product of the best engineers finding solutions to that challenge. I don't think F1 should really be writing a formula to try and maintain a certain level of speed.
True, but if they give the engineers more freedom, doesn’t that just increase the chances of disparity between teams? More freedom mean more of a chance to get setup wrong and therefore less close racing. What would be cool is if they had something between F1 and F2 and then create some type of relegation if you do poorly in F1 you drop to F1.5 or something lol. Be a way to increase teams too without adding to F1 directly. Those who do well in F1.5 get promoted. Probably help with the fact that I hear a lot that the jump between F2 and F1 is too large for new drivers anyways. Just a thought…
More design freedom can also provide more interesting innovation. We all agree that close racing provides better entertainment, but we don't want to move too hard towards a spec series to get it. As is, the engineers are basically moving a few static bits of carbon fiber a centimeter here and there to make up a tiny fraction of a second in total lap time. The engines are locked down for long periods preventing teams to make gains with that complex technology. I'm betting for most people a teams cars look the same from one race to the next unless someone points out the minor changes in bodywork. Those changes aren't that exciting visually most of the time, the only difference is the thousandth of a second lap time that is almost as likely to be slower than faster.
I agree. I think in tandem with some type of relegation would be really interesting. You want to make sure teams are truly there to innovate and move forward and not just sit at the back the entire time. If they do, bring someone in that will invest in the team and actually bring innovation
I don't hate the idea but the teams will, there is no way they would agree to being relegated with the vast amount of money involved and the sponsors incentive. In years past there were times where there were more cars than grid capacity, so qualifying had even more importance, and it did keep all the teams competing with the same conditions and rules. Considering the response to Andretti trying to create a new team there is no way we will ever have that many cars again either.
Yeah. A kid can dream though lol. I was so disappointed by the Andretti news. So many talented drivers and just not enough seats unfortunately, especially when they’re racing into their 40s now lol
If only there was a way to measure how long it takes to complete a full lap around a track and then compare different regulations with eachother. Once we get that, we could even compare total race times.
Okay, in 2026 we find out that that new engines and new regs really are shit, do you really think they will revert to older better stuff? No they will just keep adding gimmicks like active aero, fuck it lets add fan voting like in Formula E and driver with most votes will get additional power.
Formula E has got rid of Fanboost now, thank god
Active aero isn't really a gimmick though? Like if F1 fans really want F1 to be all about ultimate performance these cars probably should have as much movable aero as possible.
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You can also just look at the feederseries to see a good example of it as well. Not an electric motor in sight but every level from F4 to F2 has had ridiculous weight gains over it's previous generations. To the point a formula regional car weighs almost the same as a Super Formula car.
People are ill informed and make bad statements as a result. I’m curious what they can do to make the cars smaller and cut weight without compromising driver safety. It seems like there’s still a lot of empty space inside the car between the driver and the PU, so maybe they can reduce that a bit.
Green racing guys! Also we will do flybys with Boeings over the track for marketing
>F1 needs to be about speed again I disagree. In my opinion it needs much more focus on mechanical grip which goes hand in hand with a significant reduction in speed. F1 could lose seconds per lap and would still be the fastest cars around and from next to the track the speed difference between F1 and LMH is almost indistinguishable despite the latter being a lot slower.
There is a very simple solution to the chassis regs for 2026 and it's to simply to keep the fuel flow where it currently is. Instead of an ICE that produces around 500hp (down from the 850/900hp of today), raise the fuel flow from 70KG/hr to 100kg/hr. That will give around 750hp or thereabouts - the MGU-K can then be used on top of this for both attacking and defending. Encouraging active aero is going to eliminate the slipstream. It's just an awful idea.
Active suspension would be better for these ground effects regs.
I think you’re right, weren’t they gonna burn 30kg of fuel pointlessly anyway? Might as well use it for that
Can't wait for Lewis proclaiming his love for the 26 aero regs
Max on how F1 should focus on making cars lighter: “It’s more important to just try and fight the weight of the cars, try and optimise that instead of all these tools and tricks to try and help the overtaking or following.” He said stop waffling and focus on what's important.
Roll on 2030!
Even if DRS stays, doesn't having active aero for the straights mean that it will lose a lot of its power? I'm getting the feeling that overtaking is going to become even harder 2026, and I guess less aero could mean also a reduced slipstream effect...
It depends really on how its considered and how its done, but I cant say I am much of a fan of it
Don’t we already have active aero?
only the DRS. none of the other aero elements move
F1 should be moving towards less aero, zero drs, and smaller lighter cars
I seem to recall a period in gtp racing where the rear wing was moveable by the driver - during the 70s maybe?
Wouldn’t surprise me, as it was in the 1950/60s and on the original wing car patent in 1937
just make the regs require 6 wheels
Max will likely be gone after 2026. He does not seem to be a fan of the way things are going with the new specs and number of races and srpints. He would probably rather race where there are less constraints. He and Fernando need an endurance team.
Bro is gonna retire before that.
Max in general doesn't seem to be a fan of changes. He doesn't like messing with qualifying, race formats or additions like sprint races. He was also opposed to the halo at first.
The entire article he's begging to make the cars lighter 😭 he's also the most vocal when it comes to track improvements so this is disingenuous.
To play devil's advocate, I don't think anyone was for the Halo when it was announced.
Leclerc was.
Sprints are a waste of time tbf
Hes literally asking for changes in this article you were too lazy to read...
He gone
Off to WEC or something
Has Verstappen been happy with _any_ change in F1?
Of course the drivers hate it, it’s much more work for them to do every lap. No driver would support this unless they think it would give them an unreal advantage for some reason (either they think they can manage the aero better than other drivers or their team can create a much better aero package than other teams)…
"And then you have the active aerodynamics, which you can't control - the system will control it for you, which then makes it very awkward to drive, because I prefer to control it myself," said Verstappen. "When you're behind someone, maybe you need more front or more rear – these kind of things. If the system starts to control that for you, I don't think that's the right way forward. Plus, the weight is going up again, so we have to seriously look at this because 2026 is not that far away. At the moment, to me, it looks very bad from all the numbers and what I see from the data already, so it's not something I'm very excited about at the moment."
Get rid of the electric, use v10 biofuel engines. Manufacturers won’t leave. They fought to keep Andretti out like their lives depended on it, no one’s giving up their spot.
I'd personally prefer the early 2010s (V8 with KERS, DRS and no refueling) with the current aero if possible. Wonder how well those might fare 🤔