Key takeaways:
Gearboxes will have 6 gears instead of 8.
The cars will have to use 30kg of fuel only to generate electric power.
The wheelbase will be shortened by 30 cm
shorter cars is a welcome change
I realize the safety structure makes it hard to reduce the size too much but maintaining current sizes or reducing them a little bit should help with on-track racing, especially on the tight street circuits F1 seems to love these days
As far as I understand it it’s actually a bit of a misconception that the size of the current cars is due to safety. Part of it is the size of the hybrid engine and battery, but beyond that the wheelbase is actually artificially lengthened by the teams currently in order to fit more aero on the car. At least that’s what I’ve been told.
It’s almost purely for aero reasons to make the car faster.
Yeah I think you’re right, the battery bit is more about the weight. I got it mixed in there since they’re usually brought up together.
Anyone smart enough to explain how the gearbox change will affect racing?
Anyone smart enough to explain how the gearbox change will affect racing?
I’ve read somewhere that it’s not going to affect racing much and it’s more about cost. The Aston Martin camp is pushing for simplification of the gearbox (perhaps going so far to try making it a spec part) now that they won’t have access to Mercedes’s one from 2026.
The cars will have to use 30kg of fuel only to generate electric power.
…why?
…why?
According to the article, the existing F1 team vetoed energy regeneration at the front axle because they’re afraid of Audi for whatever reason.
Yeah but, it’s very inefficient to have a gas generator instead of just using the gas to run the motor, right?
Yeah but, it’s very inefficient to have a gas generator instead of just using the gas to run the motor, right?
In Toyota road hybrids it’s actually more efficient because charging the battery at constant lower revs burns less fuel than increasing revs to accelerate but that’s just road cars, no idea about 2026 F1 cars.
Burning fuel is definitively less efficient than generating electricity under braking from the front axle.
No generally you can get really good efficiency out of doing that. Lost of rail locomotives do that and are pretty efficient.
Electric trains work for a few reasons, multiple cars can be driven without giving up cargo space, the amount of power put down can be much higher, and wheel slippage can be managed almost instantaneously. These gains allow electric trains to overcome the loss due to electric generation and storage.
Those are generally diesels running at a constant RPM.
I don’t like the direction where this is going. Front axle regen makes so much sense, removing it because a team or two finds it too challenging to implement (?) or think that Audi is too OP in this regard (?) is stupid in my opinion. Replacing this with the new proposal to burn fuel to generate electric power when the engine isn’t under full load (in corners I guess) isn’t great. Removing the MGU-H is already sad if you ask me, although understandable if new engine suppliers are to join in.
I dislike simplifying the gearbox to only have six gears and be a spec part as well. Stop making more and more parts spec parts, F1 isn’t supposed to be a spec series. I enjoy F1 also because of the car development!
We’ll see where it’ll end up in a few years.
