Formula 1 2026 Season Discussion

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#3468298 10-Mar-2026 08:18

Might have to do with teams not being allowed to coach drivers on what to do. Remember a few years ago in Azerbaijan Lewis had his brakes in some warmning mode and the team couldn't say anything.

That said, they seem to be allowed to tell them what Strat mode to be in...

mudguard

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#3468301 10-Mar-2026 08:34

JPNZ:

On the bolded part I don't understand how this happens.. Surely the cars leave the pits with a full battery? Its only a formation lap so drivers don't need to use the battery power, they can override the system to not use the battery on that lap. They should IMHO be lining up after one lap still with a full battery ready for the launch.

My take on it anyway, obviously that didn't happen or some cars used the battery on formation lap.

They can't control the normal battery deployment as far as I'm aware, IE they can't do a lap slowly on full electric to save fuel or vice versa, it's 50/50 with the option to boost. And the start light phasing shouldn't have mattered. As pointed out there was a big blue square saying start sequence or something once they all arrived and they all got about ten seconds with pedal down to charge up before the start light procedure even began

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#3468304 10-Mar-2026 08:50

Will be a lot of learnings after Melbourne, far more then testing. ICE, battery, driver, strategy before and during a race, will be fun to see who learns better and sooner

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#3468308 10-Mar-2026 08:59

tdgeek:

Will be a lot of learnings after Melbourne, far more then testing. ICE, battery, driver, strategy before and during a race, will be fun to see who learns better and sooner

Yea I bet, straight into a sprint weekend too. Sprint Qually on Friday will be interesting.

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#3468316 10-Mar-2026 09:14

The blue light phase was 5 secs not 10 and start at Melbourne was almost immediately after that. Battery has to be used during warmup to put heat into tyres so maybe a warmup lap isn't good for recharging. If Lawson just fluffed the start why didn’t it just stall? Even if there wasn't turbo boost it seemed to be just crawling off the line.

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#3468326 10-Mar-2026 09:42

insane:

Might have to do with teams not being allowed to coach drivers on what to do. Remember a few years ago in Azerbaijan Lewis had his brakes in some warmning mode and the team couldn't say anything.

That said, they seem to be allowed to tell them what Strat mode to be in...

Driver coaching is allowed.

Driver coaching ban was only in place for 1 year then a Haas crashed and the FIA said ok these cars are so complex it's fine to coach.

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#3468380 10-Mar-2026 10:18

JPNZ:

Brumfondl:

Once all the cars were on the grid for the formation lap there was extra time before the lights started to come on. THAT was the time they were meant to be revving up so that by the time the lights went out, even if it was almost immediately, they were ready. The lights going out really quickly was not meant to affect that period in any way, but it, and a number of drivers finding that the battery was empty after the formation lap, does seem to have caught drivers out. Hopefully lessons have been or are in the process of being learned.

Agree with this point. On the bolded part I don't understand how this happens.. Surely the cars leave the pits with a full battery? Its only a formation lap so drivers don't need to use the battery power, they can override the system to not use the battery on that lap. They should IMHO be lining up after one lap still with a full battery ready for the launch.

My take on it anyway, obviously that didn't happen or some cars used the battery on formation lap.

Cars aren't allowed to be charged in the pits. I read/heard somewhere that all the sighting laps (like what Piastri crashed on) and then the formation laps aren't great for charging the battery. Will be interesting to see what changes in China this weekend around processes.

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thermonuclear

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#3468443 10-Mar-2026 14:40

GV27:

I cannot recall any other driver in F1 being held to this kind of standard. They then had nothing to say when Lawson outqualified Lindblad in Q3.

I maintain Lawson would not be getting this much scrutiny if he came from a bigger country.

Unfortunately for Lawson a good percentage of the F1 world outside NZ doesn't believe he is worth his place on the grid. Is that "fair", of course not, but F1 is a shark tank and you're either the one doing the eating or the one being eaten. Alan Permane said over the off-season that he thinks Lawson is a quality driver but he simply has to cut out the bad weekends and give Racing Bulls a compelling reason to keep him beyond 2026.

The best thing Lawson can do is kick Lindblad's butt and give Permane/Red Bull no excuse to start looking elsewhere. At the very least it would improve Lawson's prospects with other teams if he can dominate Lindblad. And, make all of us here happier to see him excelling. The supposed next cab off the rank for Red Bull is Tsolov, and he won the feature race in F2 and is leading the championship after one round.

It's disappointing that nothing has been heard so far out of the team about what Lawson's issue was off the line. Last year you'd get a comment from the head engineer about each driver's race from a technical point of view. Perhaps they haven't figured it out exactly, perhaps they are too busy with China this weekend to waste time on media comment. I really hope it is traced precisely to the energy deployment issue that has been speculated and wasn't a start error on Lawson's part.

Hybrid cars have no business in F1.

Onto China and that god-awful opening turn, the worst on the calendar IMHO. F1TV need to improve the audio coming out of the in-car feeds. The car PU's are mixed too loud and it makes the drivers and race engineers quite difficult to hear. Not sure if they have a separate car microphone or it is all coming through the driver's helmet mic.

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#3468504 10-Mar-2026 15:43

thermonuclear:

Unfortunately for Lawson a good percentage of the F1 world outside NZ doesn't believe he is worth his place on the grid.

So you keep saying. There's a whole bunch that are out of rookie phase without setting the world on fire but still have a regular spot. In no particular order Perez, Gasly, Sainz, Ocon, Stroll, Albon

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#3468511 10-Mar-2026 16:13

thermonuclear:

It's disappointing that nothing has been heard so far out of the team about what Lawson's issue was off the line. Last year you'd get a comment from the head engineer about each driver's race from a technical point of view. Perhaps they haven't figured it out exactly, perhaps they are too busy with China this weekend to waste time on media comment. I really hope it is traced precisely to the energy deployment issue that has been speculated and wasn't a start error on Lawson's part.

I posted earlier that "So Liam's issues were widespread deployment, as expected." Cant recall what media I read that on

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#3468525 10-Mar-2026 16:41

Bung:

thermonuclear:

Unfortunately for Lawson a good percentage of the F1 world outside NZ doesn't believe he is worth his place on the grid.

So you keep saying. There's a whole bunch that are out of rookie phase without setting the world on fire but still have a regular spot. In no particular order Perez, Gasly, Sainz, Ocon, Stroll, Albon

I don't even think he has to beat his team mate. Just score points.

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thermonuclear

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#3468555 10-Mar-2026 18:58

tdgeek:

I posted earlier that "So Liam's issues were widespread deployment, as expected." Cant recall what media I read that on

Yeah, thanks tdgeek, I have seen media reports suggesting it was something along those lines but nothing definitively attributable to Permane or Goss or even Lawson after they did the debrief. As I said earlier, perhaps they are too busy at the moment to say anything and it might come to light once the China weekend starts.

If Lawson executed his start procedure correctly then that would raise alarms at the FIA. Drivers have already expressed concerns that the start procedure is dangerous. Colapinto did well to avoid Lawson. If there was a pile-up at Shanghai the drums would beat louder for why is F1 pursuing these mickey mouse regs.

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#3468605 10-Mar-2026 22:04

Problem is it's too hard to change it now, we have to at least see out the season and probably more.
You can't just remove the battery now, that leaves a grossly underpowered petrol engine.

That said, man I've love them to just stick a V10 or V12 in and say it has to run on eco fuel at this point though.

Also the audio on the international feed was mixed really low for the commentators and too high for engine sounds.

thermonuclear

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#3468621 11-Mar-2026 00:25

thermonuclear

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#3468622 11-Mar-2026 00:31

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