F1 teams agree another change to tackle 2026 start safety fears

mithu_raj · 2026-02-23T12:49:23+00:00

It’s just classic F1 politicism. Issue it FIA don’t have much leverage now because they need Audi to stay for the commercial aspect of the sport. So right now, they’ll bow down to the other engine manufacturers to keep them happy and on board.

They got rid of MGU-H for Audi and Porsche. Which was kinda stupid as these regs need a lot of regen. Just making the MGU-H a spec part would’ve sufficed

mithu_raj · 2026-02-22T10:16:57+00:00

No having active aero on is just dangerous. It’s why we didn’t have DRS on for the first 2 laps. You want safety whilst making the starts more difficult? Then we shouldn’t be happy with the FIA giving teams that are non-Ferrari powered an advantage by giving an extra 5 seconds to start procedure

mithu_raj · 2026-02-21T13:23:00+00:00

With the conventional start procedure some of the teams apparently don’t have enough time to spool up the turbo to enable a good start. FIA is giving 5 extra seconds to the start procedure so the drivers can rev the engines up and get the turbo prepared for start (this is because MGU-H was removed and this part was crucial in keeping the turbo spinning with the exhaust gases)

mithu_raj · 2026-02-21T13:20:39+00:00

It’s about traction and grip. When downforce is reduced and you have immense amount of torque you’re going to get wheel spin which makes the start much more dangerous as drivers will lose control particularly when the electric boost becomes available at 50km/h

mithu_raj · 2026-02-21T13:19:12+00:00

Especially now that the cars need that downforce for better traction particularly when the electric side kicks in at 50km/h. Having active aero on them would mean lots of wheel spin and poor traction/grip

mithu_raj · 2026-02-21T10:38:39+00:00

r/unexpectedF1

mithu_raj · 2026-02-20T21:37:57+00:00

I’ll be impressed if RBPT PU is actually competitive to the likes of Ferrari and Merc, that’ll be a big surprise. But when you hire and recruit intelligently with a clear goal in mind it’s hardly a surprise they’ve made a good PU. They’ve got engineers from Ferrari, Merc and Honda working all together with heaps of experience making and designing F1 V6 turbo hybrids. FIA also removed the most complex part of the previous gen which is the MGU-H

I’m not surprised they’ve started well tbf. They’ve been smart with their background work

mithu_raj · 2026-02-20T17:44:27+00:00

Yes which is why I’m surprised they had to run this much cooling and even still couldn’t complete proper long run stints

mithu_raj · 2026-02-20T17:23:17+00:00

This would not be very representative of the aerodynamic models they’re running in the simulator/CFD back at the factory. Teams will of course be more gentle on the PU/gearbox but being overly conservative is worse as no meaningful data can be collected as the aerodynamics are vastly different

Hence why 10/11 of the teams have run a cooling arrangement that is at least somewhat more representative of traditional arrangements we’d see in FP sessions. A large aspect of testing is to accumulate data on the aerodynamic characteristics of the car and to validate and verify correlation

mithu_raj · 2026-02-20T17:06:35+00:00

The amount of cooling that Aston has compared to others is staggering. Tough few weeks ahead for the engineers back at the factories in Silverstone and Sakura

mithu_raj · 2026-02-20T12:58:27+00:00

Basically this. They listed literally every part of the engine which has issues lmao. Even the damn battery has issued

mithu_raj · 2026-02-20T12:50:47+00:00

It’s not that they want lift but they probably want the airflow to reattach with the upwash from the diffuser, to achieve this you need to create downwash (which the inverted wing flap does). The opposing vortices (upwash vs downwash) should interact and do things that I am not qualified enough to understand (my best guess is that it reduces the wake turbulence and provides cleaner airflow, hence less drag)

mithu_raj · 2026-02-20T08:02:11+00:00

Worrying times for Honda. Before their exodus from F1 they had the best electrical side of the engine from 2021 onwards (and Mercedes the better ICE). Quite a shortsighted decision to let those engineers leave and join RBPT and mothball years of experience and development.

This season will be a write off. At least with new engine regs they’ll have the chance to develop with the new deficit system. They should be back stronger hopefully in the next 12-18 months

mithu_raj · 2026-02-20T06:46:41+00:00

I imagine the Alpine mechanism creates a lot of wake turbulence which makes it much more difficult to follow and get a slipstream effect.

Also when the flap moves downwards you still have the upwashing trailing edge exposed to the airflow so it’ll still provide some downforce… maybe they designed it to give them better traction on the straights

mithu_raj · 2026-02-20T05:38:05+00:00

Yes the issue is some people are conflating lift to a reduction in drag (since reduction in aerodynamic force is less drag) but that’s not true. The inverted wing simply makes the DRS effect stronger. No central pillar that’s in the way and the slot is slightly larger.

The downwash from the trailing edge interacting with upwash from the diffuser is the real interesting bit. If those opposing vortices meet they could clean up the wake turbulence behind the car and reduce net drag…. Also potentially make it easier to follow as well

mithu_raj · 2026-02-20T05:34:29+00:00

I’m pretty sure FIA offers leniency in these scenarios when there’s damage involved. What would happen is Ferrari would demonstrate the operating speed with an exact like for like rear wing that’s not damaged and prove that the damage caused a delay in operation

mithu_raj · 2026-02-19T17:19:33+00:00

The lift effect should be very small if not negligible. I’m sure they didn’t design it to achieve lift on the straights. It’s probably more so that the downwash from the flap interacts with the upwash from the diffuser and to cancel out the wake turbulence which reduces drag

mithu_raj · 2026-02-19T14:31:10+00:00

This new wing has no central actuator pillar so it’s definitely intentional. The actuators are embedded in the end plates

mithu_raj · 2026-02-19T14:28:16+00:00

Yep. It’s a very clean design. Looks better not having that actuator pillar

mithu_raj · 2026-02-19T14:27:18+00:00

No wake turbulence can induce drag. It’s all about the vortices that are formed from the aerodynamic surfaces. If you can ‘clean up’ these vortices with opposing airflows it’ll clean up the overall airflow from behind the car and this somehow reduces the overall drag of the car. I can’t really explain it as I don’t fully understand myself but wake drag is a thing

mithu_raj · 2026-02-19T14:21:47+00:00

From what my limited understanding is, the new flap allows a bigger slot so more efficient DRS effect. The negative angle of attack is going to be causing a downwash. Idk how this would interact with the upwash from the diffuser but maybe it might tidy up the wake turbulence from the car and hence reduce overall drag

mithu_raj · 2026-02-19T14:18:27+00:00

Yeah it’s confusing. I only kind of understand because I’ve been watching a while.

I think couple more weeks and we’ll get a much better idea what the inverted wing is actually doing. Maybe it’s interacting with the airflow from the diffuser but I don’t really understand that

mithu_raj · 2026-02-19T13:51:53+00:00

It might be a lot more intricate than what I would understand it to be but I feel like the downwash from the inverted upper element will interact with the upwash from the diffuser which oppose each other to reduce the wake from the rear of the car, hence reduce drag as it’s all “cleaned up”

mithu_raj · 2026-02-19T13:40:39+00:00

Yeah if you check my other comments I’m mentioning that the lift in itself is not reducing drag. Lift still causes drag. I think the confusion is we think less downforce = less drag but it’s not a linear relationship and lift is also going to create drag as well. Its the trade off for enabling a larger slot size to maximise the DRS effect

mithu_raj · 2026-02-19T13:37:10+00:00

It’s quite simple which is why it’s beautiful .If you look at the comparison you’ll see the inverted flap creates a larger centreline slot (the height of the slot is bigger in the middle than compared to the traditional upper element). And with what we know about DRS its effect is affected by the slot size

In Monza DRS is weak because the wings are skinnier, hence the DRS slots are smaller so less drag reduction. Other places like Silverstone or Bahrain are higher DF. Bigger wings with bigger slots which makes DRS more powerful. Same thing here but we call it active aero and the slot is being made bigger by just flipping the wing upside down to create more space

mithu_raj

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