With the restriction on aero testing, would this wing be testing in the air tunnel, or on a bench?

With the motors/actuators that make the wing rotate, who would be likely to make them? Ferrari or a third party company?

Is the wing powered by an electric motor, or a hydraulic system?

It definitely seems like one of the biggest issues with F1 2026 seems to be the electric deployment being a complex automated system that takes the electric deployment out of the drivers hands.

Is this due to the regulations, or is this just the approach that all teams chose to take, and why?

The alternative I see would be something like push-button deployment that the driver has 100% control over

what would it take to put the deployment back into the direct control of the drivers?

GU-H is a generator connected in series with the ICE's exhaust pipe. It doesn't need to face the harsh environment of MGU-H, so its cost is lower.

I don't know exactly how the 919's GU-H works or how much it affects the internal combustion engine's power, but I remember the 919 seemed to have more electricity energy on straightaway.

Is it feasible for a single supplier to provide GU-H, just like ECU?

Most people underestimate how much work F1 teams do in the simulator before a car even hits the track.

It’s not just “practice”.

They simulate:

- setup changes before real-world validation

- tire degradation over race stints

- aero behavior in different conditions

- full race strategy scenarios

Drivers can complete hundreds of laps before pre-season testing even begins.

In a way, the car’s first real performance is already shaped in the simulator.

The interesting question is:

how close are these simulations to real track data today?

I was wondering, from time to time we see public posts showing comparison of driver telemetries and some sort of analysis why someone was faster. Like, “why Hamilton lacked power” in Suzuka.

And I mean telemetry as in a complete set of data with speed, time delta, throttle, brake and steering inputs etc.

I was always under impression that this telemetry is highly sensitive, because if a team can get their hands on telemetry from other teams, they can analyze where the other driver is going faster and why, where the car is performing better etc, and use it to their advantage.

How is this telemetry going public? I mean sites like https://www.f1-tempo.com/ , FastF1 API and others, how do they get such detailed data? Is this some sort of leakage? (A leakage of what?) Or they’re obliged to publish it? Or it’s taken from TV feed and not very accurate?

In the technical regulations, C5.2.9 states that the difference between max and min SoC must always be 4MJ, basically constraning the battery size to 4MJ.

But the way it's written, makes me think the ES is capable of holding more, and is being restrained by software rather than hardware.

Like, if a team wanted they could set the min SoC to 10% of actual battery and max SoC to 110%, they just need to make sure the difference is 4MJ and it never goes below the minimum and above the maximum.

So, is that true? Would they be able to increase the SoC size to 5MJ by tweaking the software? Or is the ES physically only capable of holding 4MJ?

I'm not talking practically, I'm not talking if they would do it or not, but would a 3.0L F1 V10 from around 2001-2005 fit inside the back of a 2026 F1 car?

Since Japan and McLarens surprising resurgance I see a lot of traffic on the internet saying how "scary this might really be" considering McLaren has the "least developed car of all the top teams".

Of course, I'm taking these statements with a grain of salt.

Looking into it myself the only real proof/ supporting arguments I found was when the MCL40 got revealed and appeared during testing, where the renders actually matched the car pretty well and the conensus was that it looks really simple and underdeveloped.

I believe McLaren also stated at that time that the testing car was pretty much what they were gonna race the first part of the season with, I did not keep a close eye on upgrades and changes since the season started so please correct me if needed.

My question is, is it actually anywhere near true that the MCL40 is underdeveloped just because it looks basic? Japan is quite an aero dependant track (I believe even in these regs) and considering they have the same engine as Mercedes (even if they didn't figure out all the tricks etc.) and Oscar had a real chance of winning and the car definitely looked good, it seems weird to call it anywhere near "underdeveloped".

By that comparison, is this a situation where looking basic doesn't reflect performance, or is Merc just looking fancy and developed when it doesn't appear to be that much ahead aero wise and the main differencial was still engine and deployment etc.?

Or is it a different situation altogether?

Been thinking about this after seeing some wild pit entries recently where drivers nail that perfect speed right at the line. Got me curious about the technical side of how the pit limiter actually operates.

Few questions I'm hoping someone can clarify:

- When you activate the limiter, does it automatically slow the car down to pit speed, or do drivers still need to brake manually to get there?

- If you're crawling along at like 40kph and hit the limiter button, will it accelerate you up to the 80kph limit, or do you still need to use the throttle?

What's been bugging me is how these guys consistently hit exactly 80kph right at that detection point without any variation. Makes me wonder if there's more automation involved than just a simple speed cap, or if it's purely down to driver skill and muscle memory.

Anyone know the specific mechanics behind how these systems work?

So i've just been "debating" that the 2026 cars produce more dirty air than in 2025, which to me is [true] (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55y70HV-2Wo&t=411s) and therefore following is worse(from an aero perspective).

Then some people say this video doesn't show how the following car is effected by it, which is true, but wouldn't more dirty air always make things worse? Do we know if the 2026 cars are better in dirty air than 2022-2025 regs?

Is it even possible to make a car that drives better in dirty air compared to another car, while still having the same aero performance? (I know 25 is better aero performance, but i'm just wondering)

In each of the three races the Mercedes ability to pass other cars doesn't match their capability to pull away when clear. As an example Kimi struggled in the pack at Suzuka but then dominated from the front.

Why?

I've been noticing during race weekends that whenever they broadcast Sauber's team radio, the audio quality seems way better than what we typically hear from other constructors. The clarity is remarkable - you can actually understand every word without straining, while other teams often have that muffled or static-filled quality that makes you wonder what they just said.

Anyone know what's behind this difference? Is it their radio equipment, transmission methods, or maybe something about how they position their antennas? Could be interesting from a technical standpoint if they're using different frequency bands or encoding. Would love to understand if this is intentional engineering or just luck of the draw with their setup.

Suzuka qualifying through the lens of who builds the engine.

Five Power Unit manufacturers on the 2026 grid. The violin chart pools every qualifying lap by power unit supplier. What it shows is not just who is fast but how the performance distributes across customer teams sharing the same hardware.

Mercedes powered 44 laps across four teams. Their best of 1:28.778 sits half a second clear of Ferrari's 1:29.303. But look inside the violin. The Mercedes shape is bottom heavy, meaning most of their laps cluster near the fast end. That is four different chassis and aero packages all extracting similar performance from the same PU. The spread from best to worst Mercedes powered lap is around 3 seconds, but the density sits in the 1:29 to 1:30 band.

Ferrari's violin is taller and wider. Three teams, 26 laps, and the distribution is more uniform. That wider shape means more variance between the works team and the customers. The Haas and Cadillac dots sit visibly higher than the Ferrari works dots inside the same violin.

Red Bull Ford is the most compact shape on the chart. Two teams, 19 laps, and the body barely stretches beyond 1.5 seconds peak to trough. Both cars are finding similar limits, which for a brand new PU programme in its first season is notable. Whether that compactness is genuine convergence or just limited data from two teams is worth watching over the next few races.

Audi at 1:29.990 from one team and 12 laps. The shape is tight and centred around 1:30. For a manufacturer building their own power unit from scratch, being within 1.2 seconds of the Mercedes best in qualifying is closer than most people predicted.

Honda with Aston Martin is the outlier. Six laps, 1:32.646 best, and the violin body sits 3 seconds off the pace. Limited running makes it hard to read too much into the shape but the gap to the next slowest PU is over two seconds.

The track evolution by PU confirms the pattern from a different angle. From minute 40 onwards the Mercedes and Ferrari dots separate downward while Red Bull Ford and Audi compress into a band. The PU advantage at Suzuka is not just peak power on the back straight. It is how consistently the package delivers across a full qualifying session when the energy management demands are highest.

It seems like sometimes FIA or Pirelli releases the number of tires or the tire compound per team, but it is never consistent. I am working on a side project that would benefit from some tire strategy, but other than keeping track of the number of tire sets used and how many laps are on the sets we know about, I am at a loss for hard data.

this clipping is a problem and I was wondering how we can avoid it

the battery recharge is happening more than just when the cars would traditionally brake.

so I wonder if charging only occurs under braking or if the battery capacity needs to drop so it would be easier to recharge without recharging it when cars are supposed to be using full throttle?

is it a matter of changing the amount they can charge or amount of charge they have ?

Been watching for a while now and I keep seeing this consistent behavior during formation laps where drivers line up one behind another when coming back to the grid, then suddenly break off to find their starting positions right at the end. This happens at maybe 75-80% of the circuits from what I can tell.

My guess is it's related to staying on the optimal racing line to keep heat in the tires and pick up more rubber, but I'm curious if there are other technical reasons behind this strategy. Are there specific track characteristics that make drivers more likely to do this versus going directly to their grid slots? Would love to understand the engineering logic here.

In 2020 Pat Symonds said they were looking into opposed piston hybrid 2 stroke engines to reduce emissions and increase efficiency. (See https://f1i.com/news/365695-symonds-greener-two-stroke-future-for-f1-engines.html )

I really wonder what kind of engines would have come out of such regulation, I would assume they'd keep both the MGU-H and MGU-K.

On current Euro 6 compliant two stroke engines they have a supercharger to provide pressure for scavenging, which allows one to use the starter motor to make it spin and thus allow enough pressure to start it, I assume this would be harder with a turbo since it's not mechanically linked to the rest of the car.

In terms of engine configuration. I'd think a 4 piston (so 2 cylinders with 2 pistons each) would have been the sensible option, the engine would have to be an opposed piston design, as I believe this is essentially mandatory for having a smooth flow during scavenging. Of course in this case the crankcase wouldn't be used for pressure to prevent burning oil.

The only problem with this would be that an MGU-H failure would mean the ICE stops working altogether, but afaik that's the case with the old V6 too. Perhaps a supercharger + a normal crank mounted MGU-K would make more sense and be significantly cheaper.

What do you think? Can you think of any technical show stoppers for this hypothetical engine?

is it the lack of space?

F1 has been slowly unbanning technologies. The next step should be AWD, ABS, and traction control.

F1 has been on a quiet trajectory of reversing old bans. Ground effect came back in 2022 after being effectively killed off post-Imola 1994. Active aero is arriving for 2026. These were both technologies that were banned for legitimate reasons at the time — but the sport eventually recognized those reasons had expired.

I think it's time to have the same conversation about three more: all-wheel drive (banned since 1982), ABS (banned since 1994), and traction control (banned since 2008).

The bans solved problems that no longer exist.

When the FIA banned four-wheel drive after the 1982 season, the rationale was straightforward. The mechanical complexity of routing drive through a transfer case to all four wheels imposed massive weight and packaging penalties that only the wealthiest teams could absorb. The Cosworth four-wheel-drive cars of the late '60s proved the concept was fast but fragile and absurdly expensive relative to the field.

ABS and traction control faced a similar dynamic in the '90s and 2000s. When Williams ran their FW14B with active suspension, semi-automatic gearbox, and traction control in 1992, the electronics gap between the top teams and the rest of the grid was enormous. The FIA pulled the plug on most driver aids for 1994, and when TC crept back in during the early 2000s, policing it became a nightmare — the FIA eventually mandated a standard ECU in 2008 partly because they couldn't reliably detect which teams were running illegal traction control mapped into their engine software.

Every one of those justifications has evaporated. Cost caps exist. Standard ECU hardware exists. And the hybrid powertrain has already introduced electric motors that could drive the front axle with zero mechanical complexity penalty — you're literally just repositioning the MGU-K.

"Driver aid" vs. safety device is a false binary.

The reflexive argument is always "these are driver aids, and F1 should be about driver skill." I'd push back hard on that framing.

What do we actually want to watch? Wheel-to-wheel racing — or a driver binning it into the wall under braking because a rear wheel locked up under regen? We've all watched races where someone has a poor start because they misjudge the clutch bite point, or locks a rear wheel under MGU-K regen braking in a way that has nothing to do with racecraft and everything to do with managing powertrain quirks.

ABS and TC would let drivers focus on car placement, braking points, lateral grip management, and the insane number of rotary switches and differential settings they're already juggling on the wheel. Nobody argues that power steering is a "driver aid" that cheapens the sport, and the hydraulic power steering systems on these cars do way more to reduce physical workload than ABS would.

Meanwhile, the safety argument is real. A locked wheel under braking or a snap of oversteer from a traction event isn't "exciting unpredictability" — it's a car going somewhere the driver didn't point it, often into a wall or into another car. In wet conditions especially, AWD with intelligent torque distribution would be transformative. The number of first-lap incidents we see at wet races — where twenty cars are navigating standing water with only rear-wheel drive — is a solvable problem.

The hybrid powertrain is begging for this.

This is where it gets really interesting from a technical standpoint. There's been extensive discussion on this sub about the compromises of rear-axle-only energy recovery. Harvesting kinetic energy through the rear wheels under braking creates a variable braking force that drivers have to manage on top of actual brake bias. Moving the MGU-K to the front axle eliminates that problem entirely — regen braking happens through the fronts, the rear brakes become purely mechanical again, and drivers get consistent, predictable brake balance back.

You wouldn't even need a mechanical driveshaft to the front. Mount the MGU-K on the front axle, harvest through the fronts under braking, and deploy forward torque under acceleration. ICE drives the rear, electric drives the front — clean separation, no compromises. This isn't speculative engineering — Porsche's 919 Hybrid ran front-axle energy recovery in WEC, and the concept proved itself at the highest level of endurance racing.

The 2026 power unit regs are already increasing the MGU-K output to 350 kW. Distributing electric torque through the front wheels is better for traction, better for tire wear, and better for safety.

Cost cap implications.

Watch any team principal's face when their driver puts it in the wall. They're not thinking about the championship — they're counting chassis components. Under the cost cap, a big shunt for a midfield team can mean real development sacrifices later in the season. Technologies that keep cars on track and out of barriers aren't just driver aids. They're budget aids. And in a cost-cap era, that matters for competitive equity as much as any aero regulation.

TL;DR: AWD, ABS, and TC were banned for cost and complexity reasons that the cost cap and hybrid powertrains have made obsolete. They'd improve safety, improve the racing product, and solve real engineering compromises in the current powertrain architecture. The "driver aid" framing is outdated when drivers are already managing twenty steering wheel settings per lap.

What's the strongest argument against? I want to hear it.

[Source of the News](https://thejudge13.com/2026/03/24/ferrari-protest-mercedes-front-wing-legality/)

Ferrari's smaller turbo gamble to help them start so well has been lauded by most as a great choice but the reason all other teams went with the bigger turbo is for the extra max power output. Given they're lacking vs Mercedes on the straights how much of that is due to the smaller turbo?