Ironically, a lot of this is only relevant until... this Sunday. After Sunday, the F1 season is over, and 2026 cars will be very different.
2026 cars will have less downforce and less drag (closer to Indycar) but also "active" aerodynamics (elements on both the front and rear wings can flatten on-demand to reduce drag, or raise to produce more downforce) and a hybrid power unit closer to 50/50 split between ICE and electric horsepower than the current 85/15 split for F1 cars or 80/20 for Indycars.
F1 next year will probably be chaos because there are so many different aspects that teams may have gotten wrong in development.
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There are some inaccuracies though regardless. I am pretty sure that teams do not go through multiple sets of brake pads in a weekend. They last several races, no different than Indycar.
Right now we're in a stage of the current regs where 5 manufacturers can be within tenths of a second of each other in qualifying, and the other 5 are not that far out. Five different teams have gone away with the technical regulations, gone into completely different factories, wind tunnels and simulator setups, some of them have bought in components like engines and suspension but basically have had to build and test everything else and work out all the aero across the wings and floor, and come out over a 5km track to be within meters of each other.
If you think about that a bit, it's kind of crazy and mad.
But it also means to shake things up you need to throw the dice again. It's like this generation has evolved to find the peak apex design and configuration for each and every circuit to the point where teams with more limited resources can now get competitive (yay for Williams last week!), and it's time for a new generation.
I agree next year could be chaos. I think teams that have been consistently applying discipline and consistency will continue to do well (Red Bull, McLaren, Mercedes), those that are catching on will continue to rise (William, Haas), and those who haven't realised that's the name of the game yet (Ferrari, Alpine), will continue their passion-fuelled mismanaged decline. The new players (Audi taking on Sauber, Cadillac), are going to be interesting to watch.
But within 5 years, everyone will be back to within a few tenths of each other over a 5km circuit, and we'll probably need to go again...
> hybrid power unit closer to 50/50 split between ICE and electric horsepower
Fun fact, at those ratios it would make a lot of sense to use an electric continuous variable transmission (eCVT) - connect the engine and the motor with a planetary gear set to the wheels, done. The electric motor spins backwards when going slow and forward when going fast. Those eCVTs can be lighter, more efficient an deliver more power across the entire range. But they're illegal in F1 - because they make the car sound boring.
> But they're illegal in F1 - because they make the car sound boring.
I can confirm, my CMAX has an eCVT, and the engine noises are boring. Either it's off, or it's running in a pretty limited range, you can get a bit of fun rev increasing noises if you drive it just right... but mostly boring. My 81 VW Vanagon is much more fun to drive even if it's objectively worse at everything in terms of acceleration, top speed, wheel slip, etc; although the turning circle on the cmax is garbage, so the vanagon wins there. The VW makes fun sounds as you go from low rpm to redline several times as you work through the gears, and the cmax is just droning along.
At least around me, there's a good number for sale. Lots more if you don't mind water cooling and/or subaru engine swaps.
Mostly parts are available; although some things need creativity: federal EGR filters are unobtainable so people might EGR delete instead, rear side markers aren't available, so you have to use Mercedes G-Wagon parts (but they used to use Vanagon parts and scratch off the logos!), I had to adapt a crankcase ventilation valve from a different car because they don't make the ones for mine anymore. Also, headlight switches are available new, but the molds are wrong, so they break when installing (I found a used one, and added headlight relays to reduce the current going through the switch). Oh, and I'm in the second year of ownership, so I started getting fun problems where it runs ok at home but not on the road.
When it is running though, you almost have to drive the snot out of it... Otherwise it'll take an hour to get up to speed.
How Toyota's eCVT transmission works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppyK3ZlUbtM (Nerd snipe warning: the Weber Auto channel is brilliant and has lessons about all kinds of transmission and engine types).
When it comes to something like F1 I think it's OK for efficiency to not be the top priority. Road vehicles absolutely should be as light and efficient as possible with strict limits on pollution (including noise). But it's OK for society to have a few things like F1 that are just for fun. We just don't want everyone to be driving F1 cars around their neighbourhoods or have an F1 race every week.
I think the F1 teams would all switch to racing versions of those transmissions the second they would be allowed to do so.
The efficiency gains wouldn't even be important in comparison (until you start bringing significantly less fuel than your opponents), but just the reduction in weight and size (important for aero considerations) would be worth it. Also, the power gains from always running the ICE (and its turbo) at the perfect sweet spot in the power curve would be a giant advantage in racing.
Yeah, but a huge part of F1 is the sound. It's iconic in the true sense of the word. I can totally understand them wanting to protect it as part of the brand. Enthusiasts might be into other types of motor racing, but F1 sounds fast. Everyone understands that.
> Well, they could add speakers that make vroom-vroom noises.
And you could have typed this comment into notepad and saved it on a file on your desktop, but instead you shared it with a world that considers it irrelevant.
Definitely, but the weight of the fuel doesn’t matter that much and they allowed quite a bit of fuel. Cars wouldn’t gain much by being twice as efficient if they were any slower.
I don't follow F1 at all, but I do see references to it a ton more than I ever used to, so I assume it is surging in popularity.
Why would they make such drastic changes for 2026? Is it to intentionally shake things up and make it more interesting? If so, I love that that is something they are willing to do. Most pro sports are pretty traditional and change quit slowly. Even the fastest changing league (in my opinion), the NBA, still changes quite slowly.
Regulation changes are pretty common (they happen every couple of years, 2014, 2017, 2022, 2026 etc.) and basically yes they do serve to intentionally shake things up. Regulation changes are not typically as large as this though - this is definitely the biggest change in more than a decade.
All the regs changes since 2014 have mostly left the engines alone and changed only the aerodynamic rules, whereas 2026 combines a huge change to both engines and aerodynamic rules.
Part of the appeal of F1 is the constant technological development arms race aspect so it's not just that it shakes up the order but that it's pushing the arms race in a direction that manufacturers (e.g. Honda, Ford, Audi, Mercedes, GM) are interested in. The 50/50 hybrid split was aimed at attracting manufacturers and keeping them interested in the sport and it has been basically successful at doing so, so long as it doesn't turn into a disaster lol.
Active aerodynamics is controversial but somewhat necessary to make the 50/50 split work, because otherwise the cars would be too draggy.
I think the big failure of formula e was the way they failed to promote pit replaceable battery packs.
It is debatable how much motorsport tech trickles down to improve our daily motor tech, I think this was much more the case early on and now days the sport tech is so rarefied it does not help us much. But mass market electric cars are still fairly new and I think that sporting competitiveness can do a lot of good here. The big one that was missed were easy to replace generic battery packs.
But I also think the biggest failure in f1 was the removal of refueling, so what do I know?
footnote: in nascar it was the five bold lugnuts, the pit stops with five bolt lugnuts were absolutely gorgeous compared to the single bolt they use now... and we wept.
For me, the failure of Fe is all the races are run on street courses with few high speed turns and no elevation change through the lap. That, and they sound like an NBA games with more tire squeaking noise than the propulsion system sounds.
I'm really looking forward to this weekend's F1 finale. Three drivers have a shot at the top three spots in the championship.
Interestingly there are discussions about moving back to having the majority of the power from IC engines as soon as the end of the decade, with synthetic fuels. Personally I can’t wait.
What's happening with synthetic fuels? I read while back Porsche investing in factories to produce but that was a few years ago, is it a bit of snake oil wrt to it's alleged green credentials or simply can't scale at an acceptable cost?
The World Endurance Championship has been using synthetic fuels since 2022 from TotalEnergies (https://competition.totalenergies.com/en/auto/endurance/wec/...), there's also Sustain (https://sustain-fuels.com/) in the UK as well who seem to be growing reasonably well but are a mix of sustainable & fossil fuels. There's some variability of how green they are, you still need to burn something so there's going to be emissions as well but they've been validated in the motorsport labs as being viable and they're starting to make their way to consumers.
I would like that too, but it's highly unlikely to happen since Audi and GM just entered the engine making business in F1 for the start of 2026 and they invested shit tonne of millions into engine R&D specifically for the new turbo-V6 regulations, so moving the goalposts again so soon would just rug-pull their investments, and such the FIA assured them the new regulations are gonna stay for a while. Bummer.
> Z-mode means the front and rear wings are closed which generates more downforce for the corners. In X-mode, the drivers can open the flaps which will reduce drag and increase speed.
Driver-controlled aero has the potential to be way more interesting than the strictly-limited current DRS implementation.
The most interesting DRS era was in 2011-2012 when drivers could operate it (almost) anywhere they wanted in practice and qualifying. There was an element of risk in how early you could open it exiting a corner, and we saw real mistakes from drivers pushing that limit.
More driver controls leads to more opportunities for talented drivers to make a difference, which leads to a better sports product.
The problem with DRS is the zones and only being able to use it when close behind another car. My understanding is the X-Mode can be used pretty much anywhere and anytime.
2026 cars will have less downforce and less drag (closer to Indycar) but also "active" aerodynamics (elements on both the front and rear wings can flatten on-demand to reduce drag, or raise to produce more downforce) and a hybrid power unit closer to 50/50 split between ICE and electric horsepower than the current 85/15 split for F1 cars or 80/20 for Indycars.
F1 next year will probably be chaos because there are so many different aspects that teams may have gotten wrong in development.
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There are some inaccuracies though regardless. I am pretty sure that teams do not go through multiple sets of brake pads in a weekend. They last several races, no different than Indycar.