Beta F1-Gears

@ScarbsTech
·
20h
Some details on Ferrari's unique diffuser geometry
The diffuser is a little wider than the regs, as the wall is merged into the FIA deflector stack
They've also made an extension to the inner diffuser roof, which is topped by a flap with a long preceding strake

@ScarbsTech
·
21h
This screenshot from #F1 youtube shows the diffuser extension may have been damaged (pitstop practice ?).

@xavigazquez
·
22h
Hi guys again,

And here we have the rear of the McLaren, truly exquisite and very well crafted.

@xavigazquez
·
21h
Hi guys,

An overview of the rear of #AudiRevolut 🧐

McLaren wants fix for 'recipe for disaster' 2026 F1 starts

Oscar Piastri fears that Formula 1 risks creating a "recipe for disaster" if start procedures are not changed for the beginning of the season.

Amid growing concerns about the complexities of getting the new cars off the line, many drivers and team figures think that the matter needs to be addressed with urgency.

The combination of the complicated getaways, which includes revving the engine for up to 10 seconds to spin up the turbo, and the fact that when things go wrong on starts it can cause accidents, has triggered worries from many within the paddock.

Piastri is clear that the issue is not just that there is a risk of drivers just being slightly slow away, it is of several cars being stranded on the grid.

"The difference between a good and bad start last year was you got a bit of wheelspin or you had a bad reaction time," he said.

"This year it could be effectively like an F2 race where you almost go into anti-stall. You're not just losing five metres or so. You can be losing six or seven spots if it doesn't go well."

There are also the potential risks involved with cars having lower downforce off the line because they are in straight mode.

As Piastri said: "It's whether we use straight mode at the start or not as well, because I think a pack of 22 cars, with a couple hundred points less downforce, sounds like a recipe for disaster to me."

George Russell has admitted the starts are "challenging" and a "nightmare" for engineers to help manage.

But he also raised the issue that while practice starts in testing were done when drivers had waited for the optimum turbo boost, on a real race start drivers have to go when the lights are out, without consideration for the time to spool the turbo correctly.

"I'm only doing my launch when I'm in a given window, but we are very conscious that, for a race start, you go when the lights go out," he said. "You don't go when your specific turbo is in the right window."

The possible solutions
While the 2026 cars are more complicated to get off the line, the solutions to the problems do not involve a total revamp of the technology.

The main issue is one of timing; where drivers risk being rushed while stationary on the grid to get their turbo boost into the sweet spot and that could expose them to making mistakes or not provide enough time.

It is a situation that will be worse for drivers at the back of the grid, as they normally have less time once into their grid slot before the start light sequence begins.

Haas driver Ollie Bearman said that the differences between a good start and a terrible one were miniscule.

"It's really on a knife-edge to get it right and it's a matter of milliseconds," he said. "If you're too late or too early by half a second then it doesn't work.

"It's complicated and so far we haven't been consistent at all with the practice starts, which is a bit worrying."

One solution to help could be to impose a minimum time between the final car forming up on the grid and the start light sequence beginning.

Another option could be to allow drivers to use their battery off the line to help fill in any power gaps from turbo lag, with it currently banned from use below 50km/h after the start.

While such solutions would be simple to implement and not involve any modifications to the cars, getting approval may not be easy.

Last summer Ferrari rejected a proposal at the F1 Commission to delay the start lights coming on to alleviate concerns about potential risks of cars stopping on the grid.

This was because team principal Fred Vasseur had warned about the need to make such a change many months before, but his concerns had been dismissed by others.

As a result, Ferrari set about creating its engine concept around one that would be more suitable for a short start sequence, so it would not need the turbo spun up for so long.

So when those that had not made the same compromises with their engine design suddenly came back with demands to extend the start sequence, Vasseur felt he was well within his rights to not support something that could potentially benefit others who had not heeded his earlier worries.

Alpine managing director Steve Nielsen acknowledged that it was only when he saw the practice starts on the real cars in Barcelona that he realised there could be a problem.

"It's one thing to see these things on paper and discuss them before you've actually seen them in real life," he said. "But I was surprised when I first saw it in Barcelona.

"You see these enormously long, what looks like pre-start revs, but it's actually the drivers building [turbo] boost.

"Then you start thinking, well, we've got 22 cars this year. You imagine them coming around to the grid - and that procedure is very different for the guy on pole than it is for the guy in 22nd. I think it is something that may need looking at."

McLaren boss Andrea Stella, who has called for FIA action over race starts, lift and coast and overtaking concerns before the season opener, is well aware that changing rules does not come without political considerations.

However, he feels the situation is one that is of the utmost importance.

"This is a bigger interest than any competitive interest," he said. "So I think all teams and the FIA should play the game of responsibility when it comes to what is needed in terms of race start procedure."

And even Ferrari customer teams were in favour of making some changes - even though they could in theory benefit.

Haas boss Ayao Komatsu felt that things needed looking at now the reality of the situation had become clear.

"We discussed it last year, but of course we didn't know last year exactly what we were dealing with," he said.

"It's not a total surprise. I think it's important that we have regulations such that everybody can do a decent start and we have normal racing."

False picture from fumbled F1 test
The safety debate around the 2026 getaways was further fuelled by the images of a shambolic practice start right at the end of F1 testing in Bahrain this week.

As seven cars went through a test start sequence in the closing minutes of the session on Friday, it was far from smooth.

Alpine's Franco Colapinto nearly crashed as he arrived at his grid spot after being caught out while trying to warm up his rear tyres.

Then, when the lights went out, Piastri on the front row did not get away at all, while only half the cars behind him moved.

But although it gave the impression of things being out of control, the strange situation was actually a failure of procedure rather than technical problems related to how hard the starts are.

Drivers were not supposed to launch until the car ahead of them had moved – to help minimise the risk of any accidents.

However, while some followed that procedure, others from behind did not.

As Piastri later explained: "I think the start today was just a mix up in instructions. I got told to wait until whoever was in front of me had gone – so do my own launch and not do it to the lights.

"Clearly, some other people had a different idea. So that was nothing to do with the power units."

But whatever the outcome of efforts to change the start procedure, there seems no doubt it will be a big focal point of interest for the new season.

As Alpine's Pierre Gasly said: "I advise you to be sitting with your TV on in Australia, because it could be one that everybody remembers!"

https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/why-f1-2026-starts-are-a-recipe-for-disaster-and-how-to-fix-it/

Our trackside verdict on every F1 2026 car so far

Three days of testing in Bahrain meant spending hours trackside studying the class of Formula 1 2026.

Here is an early assessment of every car from what Edd Straw and Scott Mitchell-Malm observed across multiple stints to various corners across the stint.

FERRARI
The Ferrari never looked like the most planted car, particularly when Lewis Hamilton was at the wheel. During Friday morning's running, there was a clear example of that in the comparison of his fastest lap of the morning compared to George Russell, which were set minutes apart but night and day in terms of how stable the car appeared through the Turn 6 right-hander in the middle of the sweepers and into Turn 8.

Hamilton described these cars as like "rallying" sometimes and that comes across more in his hands than Charles Leclerc's from trackside. Hamilton had the rear sliding a lot more, which sometimes seemed a consequence of him trying to work the front harder on entry – but other times just seemed to be a hint of lingering rear instability.

It is also noticeable that the Ferrari-engined cars have to stay in second gear when others are dropping to first to keep the turbo speed up. That partly reflects what's reckoned to be the smaller turbo in the Ferrari, but also the extra downshift just seems to unsettle them too much: Leclerc tried it once but the instability seemed to put him off experimenting further.

AUDI
The Audi misbehaved monstrously under braking early in the test, with both drivers visibly struggling with the impact of trying to downshift to ultra-low gears in the slow stuff to keep the turbo working hard, then struggling with getting the power down on exit anyway.

Whether that was the sole cause of the turn-in instability that was evident at times, or just compounding it, remains to be seen. While it improved as the test went on, the car only ever got to a level where it looked to be towards the rear of the midfield pack.

There were also hints it was one of the softer cars in terms of mechanical platform, which wasn't a problem but just an emerging characteristic in these cars that run less low and stiff than last year.

RED BULL
The Red Bull was visually and audibly impressive from the very first day, as its capacity to smash down through the gearbox all the way to first gear so smoothly highlighted just how well-prepared and sorted this new package seems to be.

It was not all smooth sailing. Verstappen caught a big slide at Turn 10 on day one, and on day three he went in so hot he was never going to make the corner – so just booted the throttle when deep into the run-off, and carried on pushing! There were also times when rear instability in the entry phase led to a couple of bites being required for the corner.

Max Verstappen, Red Bull, F1
Another encouraging thing is that Isack Hadjar seemed to cope well and beyond seeming to struggle just a tiny bit more with the rear instability that came with the car demands, he was adjusting his driving well through stints and so it tended to get neater rather than more lairy.

ALPINE
The Alpine was generally just that bit behind the leading group of four cars when it came to grip. Often, you could see both Pierre Gasly and Franco Colapinto having to be that little bit tentative on corner exit to keep the rear end in place.

Sometimes it looked really well-sorted, other times, like when Colapinto had to bail out of a way-too-hot entry into Turn 11, it just didn't seem to have the grip required to handle what the drivers wanted the car to do.

The overall impression was that this was the most 'midfield' of the midfield cars, which is not a criticism, and in terms of consistency it had the edge over the Williams.

MERCEDES
A standout feature of watching the Mercedes trackside is that, as the test progressed, there was nothing particularly standout about it. That's a big positive because even when the laptimes were fast, it rarely looked as difficult as most of the other cars.

At Turn 10 it didn't catch the eye or the ear in the way the Red Bull does by going down through the gears quite so aggressively, or having the same rotation. But it looked and sounded neat and tidy, moving on well from a sometimes trickier opening day when its drivers had the occasional moment, as most did at some point.

The end of the test is when it stood out most. Watching at Turn 11 during a late Kimi Antonelli long run, it was striking just how confident and aggressive he seemed to be.

Antonelli was comfortable opening up the corner wider than anyone else over the outside kerb, and turned in sharply and committed every time. The car complied well and looked good all the way to the exit, which definitely couldn't be said for some others.

CADILLAC
It visibly struggled for grip compared to most other cars, and looked perhaps a little less compliant than it ideally would be, but the impression was that this was a solid enough car in terms of behaviour that simply lacked overall grip.

There were occasions in the Turn 4 right-hander where the drivers would find themselves with some correction to do as one axle or the other gave up. And it was perhaps the most prone of any car, except the Aston Martin, to some front-locking into the tricky Turn 10.

First and foremost, it just needs more aerodynamic load - and adding that might expose some of its underlying balance limitations, but it looks like a car that's destined for backmarker respectability that would count as a huge success for this new team.

McLAREN
There was not much consistency to the McLaren trackside. It could look very good – some push laps from Lando Norris on day two, hammering down to first gear at Turn 10, were particularly impressive – but it also seemed unruly as well.

Coincidence or not, as fuel loads could have a huge impact on this kind of behaviour, the unruliness seemed to happen more with Oscar Piastri behind the wheel. He seemed to have a tougher time with the car moving around under braking and locking up the fronts, and also the rear stepping out at higher speed.

Even on the final afternoon, Piastri was inconsistent in Turn 10, with the car variable in how it reacted on turn-in - and therefore sometimes wider than anticipated and other times seeming to respond more then he would have wanted.

Where there was a clear trend across both drivers was a tendency for the engine to rev aggressively on traction and have wheelspin up to third and fourth gear, which is consistent with a team still not quite as refined on battery charging and deployment as the works team.

HAAS
We're used to the Haas keeping a low profile during testing to focus on heavy fuel work and it was probably the car that grabbed the least attention during the Bahrain test. That's meant in a good way, for it seemed to be the car that, if not had fewer moments than others, was likely having more minor and contained ones.

As it's not a car that is blessed with class-leading downforce, things inevitably looked harder on longer stints. Ollie Bearman could be seen starting to grapple with some understeer on a longer Thursday evening run, which turned to rear instability as he presumably tried to compensate with some brake-setting changes.

But overall it's a solid car that looks unremarkably decent, runs well and for which, as Bearman says, "driveability has been good from the beginning".

ASTON MARTIN
So many of my (Scott's) trackside notes regarding Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll reference a lock-up, or a slide. Three in four laps for Stroll on day one, four in a row for Alonso on day two, which included the biggest I think I've ever seen at Turn 10 - which, when I told him that on Friday, caused a real 'yeah, that's what I'm dealing with' kind of grin.

This is a car that usually looks difficult to drive and when it doesn't, it looks slow - maybe because the drivers just have to be so restrained, maybe because the energy recovery capacity of the Honda engine means there's more saving to do.

It could also be the engine and the new gearbox are just not comfortable with the aggressive downshift demands of this energy formula, and that the package is not that well-refined – hence front-locking turning to rear-locking very quickly, either as the drivers try to manage the car behaviour with brake balance or engine braking changes, or as the energy recovery demands change lap to lap.

Ultimately, it just reflects a package that is a lot less well-understood than all its rivals'.

RACING BULLS
The Racing Bulls appeared to be grappling with the effects on car dynamics of the power unit behaviour more than most. In both slow and fast corners, there were moments where the expected grip simply was not there, including on Friday morning when Liam Lawson found the rear end not sticking as expected in the fast sweepers and took to the run-off after collecting the resulting moment.

The car could be erratic on turn-in and was also often a handful when it came to putting down the power in traction zones out of slower corners. But those problems likely started before the corner given the inconsistency on corner approach and the tendency to be variously under- or over-rotated.

WILLIAMS
The number of times the Wiliams went past was probably more impressive than the manner in which it did so, topping the mileage charts for this test.

Williams didn't leave a midfield-leading impression by any means. Sometimes its car looked pretty tidy but others it was hard to slow down and there was one stint where Carlos Sainz didn't look like he was having a good time at all.

Perhaps the high rake means it's having to run a little stiffer, which is creating its own problems, but that might be eased as it catches up on set-up work following its delayed start.

It's decent for a car that started the week well behind the others but there is quite a bit of room to improve.

https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/bahrain-f1-test-trackside-verdict-every-2026-car/

@JunaidSamodien_
·
20h
A beautiful picture of the flow-viz on the left hand side of the SF-26 floor. #F1Testing

What weird F1 2026 starts are really like to watch

Starts are a massive talking point with Formula 1's new engines and what stands out in person more than the complexity, inconsistency, and alleged safety risk, is simply how peculiar the 2026 procedure is.

With so much new this year, it is hardly surprising that there are some counterintuitive experiences for those driving the cars, and those observing them.

Bashing down the gearbox aggressively to first, hearing the revs rise and seeing the cars lurch around from the engine braking, is a good example. But witnessing practice starts during F1 testing was by a clear margin the most unusual experience of the lot.

Without the MGU-H, the new engines don't have an electrical assist to pre-spin the turbo. So sustained revving is required to increase exhaust energy, spin the turbine faster so it is closer to its effective operating speed, and eliminate the lag before the boost kicks when the driver wants to accelerate.

Videos of practice starts at the Barcelona shakedown showed drivers spending several seconds longer than normal on the throttle, revving the engine for a long time before launching. So this was a known, unusual phenomenon going into Bahrain - but is maybe another 20% or so weirder to experience in person.

Looking for more expert insight from F1 2026 testing? The Race Members' Club is the place to be - join today to start a seven-day free trial

The car pulls into position, the driver engages the clutch and selects first gear, the revs rise - and the car just sits there revving for what feels like an eternity. Some sound more piercing than others - the Audi made for a particularly eardrum-bashing listen in my experience - but overall it is quite jarring compared to the usual hold of a few seconds that came before.

Ollie Bearman in the Ferrari-powered Haas was the first to arrive. He revved the engine for just over 11 seconds before pulling away - but the sound isn't consistent. Even if the revs only change subtly there are small but noticeable crackles, presumably as Bearman slightly modulates his throttle input to go with the clutch bite point.

Next up, Gabriel Bortoleto's distinctive Audi. He revs the engine for a whopping 13.5s before pulling away and the oscillations are unique. I'm not sure if this makes much sense, but it has a very 'metallic' sound: a high-frequency rasping that's not as clean as the Ferrari or the Mercedes, which I heard via Lando Norris's McLaren. The exhaust note is a lot higher and the revs change more before the launch too, although that could obviously just be differences in how quickly the driver settles into the level he wants to launch with.

Lewis Hamilton's practice start in the Ferrari was impacted by waiting for another car to pass, but even so, revving that for some 15-16s was quite something even though it was almost certainly Hamilton just taking his time. Valtteri Bottas taking 11s in the Cadillac despite waiting a few for another car to pass is probably a better indicator of the reduced turbine-spinning requirement the supposedly smaller Ferrari turbo demands.

The works Ferrari's process, probably unsurprisingly, is more refined than its customers. The engine sounds a lot smoother, consistent rpm, and the exhaust note is quite dampened by comparison.

This cannot be said for Lance Stroll's Honda-powered Aston Martin. For one thing, he restarted the process (which, when backing off the throttle, sounded so odd it was almost like a misfire), but when that car sits there for seven seconds, it is crackling and popping so much, on top of a low, guttural exhaust.

It's like the engine has a cold and though some of this will reflect a genuinely distinct-sounding engine it also surely reflects how unrefined the Honda is compared to other engines that have logged a lot more real-world running.

It contrasts sharply with the McLaren, which has an eight-second hold on the throttle, sounds extremely clean (in the circumstances) and has the best bite-point find and rpm consistency of any of the car/engine combinations we got to hear.

The shortest launch process we watched was Liam Lawson's in the Red Bull-powered Racing Bulls. The hold was only six seconds, but it was all a bit messy - revs rising and falling, causing a pitch of the very distinctive, mean Red Bull engine sound to fluctuate, culminating in a slightly flat launch.

Bearman also fluffed a pull-away - interestingly after just six or so seconds on the throttle - when we were watching a different start, and a couple of others weren't particularly clean either. That's before even factoring in how differently the cars react when the 350kW from the MGU-K kicks in. So it served as an interesting set of case studies for how long, how complex and how inconsistent the starts are at this stage of testing.

"It's a lot more complicated and a bit more inconsistent, that's for sure," says Bearman.

"Now we have to spend a lot longer doing the wait phase prior to doing the actual start and it's really on a knife-edge to get it right.

"It's really a matter of milliseconds, if you're too late or too early by half a second then it doesn't work.

"So it's complicated and so far we haven't been consistent at all with the practice starts, which is a bit worrying, but I think we start to understand why and as we understand the engine more things will get easier.

"It's not as easy as a throttle position equals a certain power from the engine. And then of course you have the transition to MGU-K at a certain speed as well, which is proving challenging to implement properly.

"It's tough for everyone, that's for sure. You see everyone sitting on the grid for 20 seconds with their rpm all over the place and it shows that we're not the only ones struggling with that."

What connects them all is they are loud, aggressive in a way, and disconcerting mainly because it's so unfamiliar. That goes for the drivers, too. One told me that they almost feel bad doing it, because it is so counterintuitive, and that they are wincing a little bit for fear of the engine going bang. It won't, or it shouldn't, because it is built with a very high tolerance, but it speaks to how irregular the whole thing is.

It will become more normal in time, and it may not be something broadcast viewers notice much given the picture choice and where the audio is drawn from for the world feed in those moments before the lights come on probably doesn't need to feature cars at the front of the grid revving their engines weirdly early.

Unless anything changes there, it's just a 2026 idiosyncrasy they need to get used to and accept - as do all of us watching.


https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/what-weird-f1-2026-starts-are-really-like-to-watch/

Mark Hughes: 2026 F1 cars could've been even more flawed

Max Verstappen's disparaging comments on Thursday in Bahrain testing regarding how the energy management demands of this generation of car have made for a style of competition which is "anti-racing" left no room for doubt about his disapproval. Coming on top of the similar comments from Lewis Hamilton, it's not the sort of messaging the commercial masters of F1 would have chosen from their two highest-profile stars.

In one sense, that's refreshing; the drivers haven't been tamed by the marketing demands of the vast commercial entity. But how we got here is everything to do with commerce.

The awkward energy usage - trading off corner approaches and entries for energy deployments on the straights - which Verstappen and Hamilton are railing against is just another corollary of the original big decision to configure a near-50/50 electrical/combustion split and deleting the previous ERS-H technology.

That decision was all about trying to attract new automotive companies into F1 and to retain the existing ones. Electrification was the direction the industry was moving and the sophisticated, highly F1-specific hybrid technology of the 2014-25 generation was deemed too complex and non-relevant for new automotives.


Massive batteries and no ERS-H has given us an ICE which needs to be used as a generator for the battery and therefore placed a huge complexity of demands upon the driver and a move away from the traditional craft of being faster than the next guy by taking more speed into the corners. Now it's about being smarter with how you retain battery charge to be deployed down the straight. The traditional demand is in direct opposition to the new one.

Although this is only now being experienced by the drivers, it's something which has been known about since the very formation of these regulations years ago. But that was the direction F1 had chosen to go. Given the severe challenges of getting a raceable car from such severe energy starvation (huge batteries and not much recovery capacity with which to charge them), the regulators and F1 engineers together have done an amazing job to produce the cars we have. An amazing job in navigating through the obstacle course set by the decision to do what the automotive sector was asking for.

So yes, we now have a generically flawed car in terms of what skillset it demands of a driver and of how appealing that might be to the fanbase. But it could have been so much worse.   

Which begs the question of should F1 be following the wishes of automotive manufacturers? If we think of the automotive future, it's towards full electric, driverless and domestic appliances rather than sporting charisma.

How this new era is received by fans and how much that reception might be influenced by the opinions of its highest-profile drivers will be crucial in determining the direction of F1 after the end of these regulations.

A return to smaller batteries (or none at all)? Back to traditional driver demands? Or will the fanbase have been weaned off such values by then? And will F1 have lost Verstappen to another category in the meantime?

https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/f1-2026-cars-could-have-been-even-more-flawed-than-verstappen-thinks/

Tendremos F1 en Montmeló en 2028, 2030 y 2032. Lo peor de la noticia es que se alternará nada menos que con SPA    .







Catalunya acogerá el Gran Premio de Fórmula 1 hasta 2032

El Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya será sede del campeonato mundial en los años 2028, 2030 y 2032, además de acoger la prueba prevista para 2026.

16 febrero, 2026 | Formula 1

El Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, que ha acogido 35 ediciones de la Fórmula 1 desde su inauguración en el año 1991, mantendrá su lugar en el calendario más allá de 2026, cuando finalizaba el anterior contrato. La renovación ha sido firmada por los representantes de Circuits de Catalunya, SL, sociedad participada mayoritariamente por la Generalitat de Catalunya y adscrita al Departamento de Empresa y Trabajo, con Formula One World Championship Limited (FOWC) en relación con el Gran Premio de Barcelona-Catalunya como prueba del Campeonato del Mundo de Fórmula 1 para los años 2028, 2030 y 2032, además de la prevista para 2026.

A partir de este año, la cita llevará el nombre de Gran Premio de Barcelona-Catalunya en lugar del habitual Gran Premio de España. El Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya acogerá entre el 12 y el 14 de junio de 2026 la 36ª edición del campeonato del mundo, la primera bajo la nueva denominación.

Más ---> https://www.circuitcat.com/es/noticias/circuit/catalunya-acogera-el-gran-premio-de-formula-1-hasta-2032/

Más #aeroporn del gran Xavier Gàzquez.


Xavier Gàzquez @xavigazquez · 2h

Hi guys,

Details of the #Mercedes tea tray while conducting aero tests 😜😜
.
#xaviimages #aeroporn #f1technicalphotographer #F1Tech #formula1 #F1 #grainingf1tech #BahrainTestF1

Comparando morritos.

Craig Scarborough @ScarbsTech · 5h

Amazing shot of the Willians and Mercedes packaging from @crosaleny
.
Despite the outer bulky appearance the packaging inside is quite tight. It wouldn't be difficult to see very sidepods shrunk around the rads.










Also the Merc PU packaging shows the plenum sits with inlets pointing up, much the 2014 PU. The pipe feeding them turns down. Suggesting the intercooler sits below, fed from the compressor. With the airfilter also feeding through the V. There's some careful insulating going on.










Albert Fabrega @AlbertFabrega · 3h

Yep! See this from Merc to "hold" the sidepod

nicolas carpentiers @carpentiers_f1 · 4h

On the #Alpine, the trailing edge collapses while the leading edge stays fixed, creating an "extension" of the mainplane that helps maintain attached airflow.

Craig Skinner, diseñador jefe de Red Bull, ha dimitido de manera inesperada. Estaba en el equipo desde 2006.



Fuente -----> RacingNews365.nl