Formula 1 2026 Season Discussion

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#3443852 14-Dec-2025 15:20

thermonuclear:

this series should have combustion engines as king and preferably V10's.

For this to happen, you would have to kick out Mercedes, Audi, Ferarri, 'Aston Martin' (to some degree), even Alpine as they all use F1 to create new tech for their road cars. With Europe moving heavily towards a sustainable automotive industry, the manufacturers follow and so the teams.

F1 would require to remove the power of veto from all the teams and then push the non-hybrid approach but given the costs already sunk over the years and the fact the teams wanted to head this way in 2014 shows that they do not care for a return to the old ways.

Jaxson

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#3444301 15-Dec-2025 17:43

Interesting feedback on the ground effect era cars from the drivers:

Alonso
“But I think the [current] cars are definitely too heavy, they are too big and the ground effect and the ride heights we are racing are not really fun to drive."
“And probably even to follow cars, the expectations of this regulation that it was to follow closely and to have a better action on track was not really a success."

Not looking forward to the next cars being slower.

Verstappen
“I won’t miss these cars,” he said. “It was good for a while in the beginning [the dirty air aspect], but not anymore."
“I didn’t find them the most fun to drive, to be honest,”
“It hasn’t been comfortable at all, all these years – my whole back is falling apart and my feet always hurt."

Sainz
“I had a struggle with them in 2022 adapting to this generation, and I’ve had a bit more success later on adapting to it, but it’s not in my nature to drive these cars the way I have to drive them,”
“I actually had to relearn a couple of different skills that I didn’t know I would need to drive a Formula 1 car. And I’m glad it’s over, and hopefully next year I can go back to a more natural driving style.”

Hulkenberg
“I think a bit more neutral for me,” he said. “I don’t mind it. I think just the following, particularly this year, has really become very, very bad"

Ragnor

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#3444438 16-Dec-2025 00:33

Jvipers2: Predictions would be Merc will dominate in the early few races. They're a team that has experience in movable aero parts and hybrid power trains, so I'm confident they'll be good from the get go...

McLaren & RB will be behind initially due to the long battle, especially with RB still developing the car late into 2025...

Cadillac will be a couple of seconds behind, like how all new teams in F1 will debut.

And sadly, Lawson will be beaten by rookie teammate again unless he can change his mindset and mentality competing in F1, not the junior series...

Merc today is not the same as the post brawn Merc that won 7 championships, they lost a lot of talent.

Jaxson

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#3445399 18-Dec-2025 15:45

You all seen this?!

MotorSport New Zealand has appointed experienced and highly regarded motorsport professional Michael Masi as the Event Director for the Repco NextGen NZ Championship.

https://racingnews365.com/former-f1-race-director-michael-masi-lands-new-role
https://motorsport.org.nz/michael-masi-appointed-as-event-director-for-repco-nextgen-nz-championship/

mdf

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#3445566 19-Dec-2025 10:18

Jaxson:

You all seen this?!

MotorSport New Zealand has appointed experienced and highly regarded motorsport professional Michael Masi as the Event Director for the Repco NextGen NZ Championship.

https://racingnews365.com/former-f1-race-director-michael-masi-lands-new-role
https://motorsport.org.nz/michael-masi-appointed-as-event-director-for-repco-nextgen-nz-championship/

🤨 Unexpected!

Handsomedan

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#3445575 19-Dec-2025 11:06

It's taken me all this time to finally work out that Sainz is the son of the Rally great, Carlos Sainz Sr.

I always thought it was an unrelated name-sake and wild coincidence that two drivers with the same name were at the top of their games respectively.

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#3445583 19-Dec-2025 11:30

Handsomedan:

It's taken me all this time to finally work out that Sainz is the son of the Rally great, Carlos Sainz Sr.

I always thought it was an unrelated name-sake and wild coincidence that two drivers with the same name were at the top of their games respectively.

You might like to watch this then. Ferrari were quite open that they were only moving Carlos on to allow a champion to join their team. Their Sainz farewell handling was really good.

Batman

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#3447426 26-Dec-2025 21:50

apparently Mercedes found a way to make more power, and RB poached a Merc engineer who then told them about Merc's trick and now Merc and RB have found a way to make more power, to the fury of the rest of the teams ...

so if that's true expect Merc and RB to be up there next year ...

TwoSeven

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#3447438 27-Dec-2025 07:56

Not really too fussed about the new 26 regulations there are some good changes. As far as I can see they are trying to regulate out the existing (teams) design mistakes.

I think the only good change is shortening the wheelbase and width which should in theory allow for a slightly faster rotation in corners.

Lifting the vortex behind the car up several degrees (by angle)also helps following cars on the straights, so should see closer following distances.

going back to a flat under tray removing the ground effect issue I think is interesting.

I think the variable front wing may be a bit of a lemon (for passing). Currently some of the cars have a good rake/angle of attack allowing them to get good front end grip into the corners at the expense of straight line speed. Other cars were more neutral allowing for straight speed, but rotational issues in the corners.

the new variable wings I think allows for both strategies, which I’m not a fan of. I think the old way of making the teams choose setup strategy which worked for a subset of tracks made the constructors side of things more interesting, but now having effectively variable setup may throw all that out of the window.

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#3447439 27-Dec-2025 08:31

TwoSeven:

Not really too fussed about the new 26 regulations there are some good changes. As far as I can see they are trying to regulate out the existing (teams) design mistakes.

I think the only good change is shortening the wheelbase and width which should in theory allow for a slightly faster rotation in corners.

Lifting the vortex behind the car up several degrees (by angle)also helps following cars on the straights, so should see closer following distances.

going back to a flat under tray removing the ground effect issue I think is interesting.

I think the variable front wing may be a bit of a lemon (for passing). Currently some of the cars have a good rake/angle of attack allowing them to get good front end grip into the corners at the expense of straight line speed. Other cars were more neutral allowing for straight speed, but rotational issues in the corners.

the new variable wings I think allows for both strategies, which I’m not a fan of. I think the old way of making the teams choose setup strategy which worked for a subset of tracks made the constructors side of things more interesting, but now having effectively variable setup may throw all that out of the window.

Or, it might be that if every car can work at every track, it biases the races to the better drivers?

langi27

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#3447444 27-Dec-2025 08:46

Did anyone get the F1 TV Premium subscription. Is the extra $60 worth the 4K stream and multi viewing?

I enjoyed the F1 TV Pro sub, but then i don't really know what im missing out on. are the 4K streams available in NZ?

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Jaxson

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#3447504 27-Dec-2025 10:15

Also Merry Christmas team GZF1

Jvipers2

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#3456895 29-Jan-2026 09:44

langi27:
Did anyone get the F1 TV Premium subscription. Is the extra $60 worth the 4K stream and multi viewing?

I enjoyed the F1 TV Pro sub, but then i don't really know what im missing out on. are the 4K streams available in NZ?

It's worth it if you're an advanced fan that will make use of the multi view and telemetry

If you're just wanting to watch, Pro is sufficient

Benoire

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#3456905 29-Jan-2026 10:38

Pro has a good quality stream on my 4k 65" TV, so much better than Sky Sports Now and as noted will be great if you just want the stream.. I'm curious about the 4k quality and I could use the mutliview option too to watch in car view on my laptop while main screen is showing the actual race but yeah premium aint required to watch 'good' quality racing.

thermonuclear

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#3457020 29-Jan-2026 16:40

Anyone seen anything to indicate the F1TV discounted price will be offered again this year? My memory is fading but I don't think it was offered last year for the first time but they did introduce the new plans. Perhaps it will return for this season with that novelty now having worn off (and not a price increase across the board!).

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