Formula 1 is deploying new jargon for 2026
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Can anyone help me understand this part? How does the drivetrain reduce drag so much - did the MGU-H sap power that badly while full throttle on the straights? I'd think that the drag gains mostly come from the active aero, not the powertrains?
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The reason for the lower drag is because of the new powertrains ... very indirectly.
The new powertrains lost the MGU-H and thus lost a ton of electrical generation. The sustained ICE+electrical output during a long pedal-to-the-floor straight is simply lower than the outgoing engines.
Thus, the cars would be distinctly slower. Either on the straights because they couldn't push draggy wings, or through corners cuz teams would trim them out to make up for the lower engine output.
Ergo, the active aero is around to reduce drag on straights because the FIA/F1 didn't want the speed-trap readings to be 30mph lower or laptimes 10 seconds slower in 2026.
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Keith Tanner
Ars Tribunus Militum
There are street driven equivalents - some cars have extra power modes that are only available for a short period due to heat management. So you can get your "boost mode", but only for a short period for solid mechanical reasons. It becomes a tactical tool, just like battery management is today.
I had a chance to have a long talk with one of Lewis' powertrain engineers around 2015 or so. He said that there was a distinct difference between the two Mercedes drivers as to how much they could manage in the cockpit. You could load Lewis up with a bunch of tasks, while Nico needed them one at a time.
Being able to control and manage these very complex cars is a driver skill that separates them from each other. It's not all about how to place your car on track to plan an overtake even if that's mostly what you see from the outside.
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Aston Martin already has that. It is installed by default in their second car.
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Take off the wings, ban ground effects and get rid of the gimmicks. You'll see the difference between the great and good drivers (most drivers in F1 are good).
Make the cars depend entirely on tire contact patch size, compound stickiness, and suspension geometry.
Make the cars depend entirely on tire contact patch size, compound stickiness, and suspension geometry.
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You could have that in a spec series. Which is not F1. There are plenty of options.
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I believe the assertion here is that in order to be relevant, power units need to be similar to what we find in road cars. I.e. hybrid and turbo charged. I fundamentally disagree with this assertion. I don't think anyone who loves their hybrid is now going to become an F1 fan because the cars are hybridized. People like the sport because it's exciting, cool, and the drivers have reality show drama. I'd argue that making the cars sound cooler, done through making them NA, would achieve greater relevance. Also, is it not a slight insult to our intelligence to suggest that by making the cars hybrid, somehow makes them like what we drive.
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It will be particularly tactical as the Overtake mode can be used anywhere on the track, unlike DRS which was limited to zones. The following driver will have to be in a defined gap to the driver in front, which I understand will change track-to-track. The potential good thing about the Overtake mode is that it is inherently limited by what the driver has harvested, so drivers will have to be careful about the best time to deploy it. Hopefully we will see passes in places that aren't considered passing spots now. I'm glad they didn't go with the original name of Manual Override Mode, which would have lead to people moaning about "easy MOM passes".
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Back when you could tell the race was canceled due to the lack of any funerals. No wonder that comment is sitting at -10.
Not that I wouldn't suggest Formula Legends on GOG, but doing it for real? Not going to happen.
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They don't mean relevant to the fans, they mean relevant to the manufacturers future cars. No amount of R&D on naturally aspirated engines is relevant for future consumer vehicles. Hybrids and turbos ARE relevant for future consumer vehicles.
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I'd argue that they're gimmicks on the road as much as on the racetrack. Most of the cars with overboost modes already have plenty of power. If your 911 Turbo can't make an overtake at full throttle, overboost mode isn't going to help you.
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Add some tire flame trails a la Back to the Future and Rocket League while you're at it.
As far as actual physical indication, first thing that comes to mind is that one Porsche EV or hybrid they showed off at Goodwood either this year or last. On the back where the usual brake/light strip was, they had like a bright blue animated strip to show regen or boost or something. Could have something like that as a visual boost meter, which could have an interesting impact on the racing itself if the drivers could straight up see when their opponents are up or down on boost (...if that stuff works and can be used like that).
Aerodynamics are hard. Not gonna pretend like I know anything in that field, but have remembered hearing about how the tires/wheels are an interesting aerodynamic problem themselves. Add in the fixed and rotating brake elements among everything else going on in that region, I can't imagine makes it any less complicated. And then you add in the heat and cooling requirements of braking, kinda wonder how/if the varying temperature extremes play into aero as well.Hold up... did that guy say that air turbulence from the insides of the front brake drums was a significant cause of worse downforce for the next car behind?
Ah ok, thanks for the explanation. The thing that's confused (and/or annoyed) me about F1 in the modern era is the zone limited stuff. I've always just wondered why can't the various tools be used whenever/wherever? Do the new rules free everything up or are there still limitations on them? Like is Overtake mode only for overtaking (or defense?) situations or can it be freely used as a strategic speed up anywhere? Are the active aero controls mandated by zones or can drivers change them on the fly, or automated to some extent for safety reasons?
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They're like the "Turbo" button on older PCs. Sales gimmicks to make fools part with their money. As you state, no way in hell, does a 911 Turbo not have enough "power" for any daily driving situation. The only place a "boost mode" can help is at the track.
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I can't say I know a lot about F1. But it seems to me like it's mostly an automotive soap opera with more design plot twists and turns than in any actual race they run, without really adding any actual entertainment to the sport.
This whole thing just baffles me, and because of the incessant changes, I completely lose interest in it, since there's no practical way to follow it. The changes seem so arbitrary and anti-racing, I fail to see the point of following it in the first place.
That whole adage about cooks and soup come to mine.
This whole thing just baffles me, and because of the incessant changes, I completely lose interest in it, since there's no practical way to follow it. The changes seem so arbitrary and anti-racing, I fail to see the point of following it in the first place.
That whole adage about cooks and soup come to mine.
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So do I. Rules at least held for a season or two before see-sawing. And the cars were much better looking.
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Compare the silhouette of an F1 car from the 80s or 90s to present. They were a lot small then.
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Drivers have always been able to control electrical deployment wherever they want, since the hybrid power units were introduced. That's just been renamed Boost Mode for 2026.
As explained in the article, Overtake Mode is available for overtaking and is available when the following car is 1s behind another car. From how I read the rules, it really only makes a difference once the cars exceed 290kph. So, while it is technically available at any part of the track, it's only going to come into play on straights.
Not explained in the article, but how I think it's going to work, there will be one detection point for the track. If the following driver is within a second when they cross that point, they get to use Overtake whenever they want for the next lap. Although, as I said, it really only offers an advantage in the 290-337kph range.
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Keith Tanner
Ars Tribunus Militum
You don't need a 911 Turbo, a Camry has enough power. Right?
Overboost mode is a thing whether you like it or not. It's a way to reach power levels that aren't attainable for long periods but may be useful for whatever you use the car for. Heck, the Renault Clio I rented in the UK comes with an overboost feature to help the little 1.2l engine with merging situations.
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You could, but a non spec series would be better, just get rid of the aero and side gimmicks (which are designed to compensate for what aero does to the racing).
You can still allow development in every area other than aero and get a lot of benefit. In fact, one could argue that you could relax the rules and get even more development in other areas if you did that.
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I hope it would be much the same, but it seems like F1 is being a bit helicopter regulating the drivers and wanted to make sure they don’t try to use low downforce in corners that could cause a crash (e.g. only works on sections designated as straights, has a lap distance limitation so even if you don’t hit the brakes it automatically changes to corner mode, and of course switches to corner mode when braking like DRS). They apparently don’t trust the drivers to switch modes when they need to or not to push the envelope on almost straights. It all depends on what they designate as a straight.
Edit: It looks like the regulations for Straight mode and Corner mode have eliminated most driver restrictions, so it may not be that bad.
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You misunderstood purpose of "turbo" button on PCs back then. They were for lowering of CPU frequency for compatibility with old software (mostly games).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbo_button
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Sure, but then you'd have cars that were slower around a track than an F2 car. There are plenty of slower racing series already. They don't get global viewership.
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Especially with the obsolete restrictions on fuel flow and MGU-K usage - having a fixed load of fuel at the start of the race should be all the restrictions needed. And allow enough fuel to run wide open to the end. I don’t want racing restricted by fuel, by track layout, car design and tire wear is enough.
And allow extra tires that come out of the cost cap - don’t be restricting the teams in practice by being stingy with tires, especially wet weather tires.
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The late 1990s was the era of narrow cars, grooved tires, and very little passing.
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I really hope someone with decisionmaking authority eventually figures this out.
If you have a limit of energy (liquid fuel) for the race -> that's all the energy-usage limitation you need
If you have a limit on the money you can spend -> then any other rule justified by cost can be tossed
If you have a carbon-neutral fuel -> then any other rule justified by carbon emissions can be tossed
For instantaneous fuel-flow in particular though, IIRC there's a racing-quality justification for it. If you allowed teams to have uncapped fuel flow, your races might be more like a 500m track cycling race: cars going as economically as possible for 90% of the time to save up for one blast of power.
ETA: Of course, by reducing rules you're increasing the size of the possible solution space, which makes it more likely some team is going to run away with things until others catch up. And few people enjoyed 2014 when Mercedes did just that.
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You misunderstood who the relevance is for - as explained in the article, the relevance to road cars is to attract car manufacturers to the sport and the new regulations appear to be successful in that front with Audi, Cadillac, Honda and Ford willing to join with the chance that F1 development can provide training and possibly technology transfer to regular road cars.
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Absolutely true, but front regen would be tricky in practice for F1 cars.
The cars produce massive braking power but for really brief durations. In extremely rough estimates, the front axle would need 1MW of MGU to capture 3kWh per lap. And the batteries/supercaps must be scaled up to accept that as well.
The cost, complication, space, and weight penalties are difficult to justify here, because the total energy recovered over the entire race equates to an extra ~25kg of fuel.
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Overtake mode is only for overtaking: you must be within one second of that car ahead at the detection line (normally the final corner) and then can use it for the next lap.
The Straight mode can only be activated on designated straights, otherwise the car is in Corner mode. The Straight mode may only remain active while the car is within a designated Activation Zone.
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And yet, a Porsche with Sport Chrono has a Sport Response button that reconfigures the PDK transmission, suspension and engine for maximum available power for overtaking or other need for maximum power for 20 seconds. This means you can be in a highway cruising mode but get full responsiveness temporarily.
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slower at first, but the speeds would creep up over time as the other parts got more attention. Also, a LOT can be done with tires. They are artificially slow. The manufacturers can do quite a lot to improve things if you give them the leeway.
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Excellent additional info. Thanks. I read that these systems requiere a lot of the mental capacity a driver needs to use the systems a efficient as possible. If that will be the case we can expect perhaps some surprises. Drivers that have more natural speed have more spare headroom to deal with all the variables.
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My understanding was that, when modelling vehicles, the Z-axis referenced yaw about the vertical centreline and the X-axis referenced the vehicle's forward travel. So Z-mode made sense for "cornering mode" and X-mode made sense for "straight-line mode." But probably the new terminology is clearer.
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FIA want F1 to be the premium grade, but to do that it needs to stay ahead of Formula-E cars. The Gen3 F-E car design was hamstrung a bit so it wouldn't be faster than the F1 cars, the gen4 cars that will race in F-E next year will probably be about as fast (or slightly faster on some tracks) as the current F1 cars. With electric motors having higher torque, allowing faster acceleration out of corners, and regen braking allowing drivers to brake later into corners, the advantage of higher peak speed was no longer enough - F1 cars had to adapt.
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F1 is, and has always been, as much an engineering competition as a driving competition. There is plenty of information, podcasts, websites, analysis to help you follow both sides of the sport. And the changes are anything but arbitrary and anti-sport - more often, they're made to enhance competition by closing up exploitable loopholes, resetting the balance of power, or (as here) allowing for better on-track racing. It's fine if you don't care, or don't want to care, but you're just flat out wrong in your understanding here.
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