2026 Formula 1 Season Thread

[FurnaceFace]

With testing underway I figured it was time to fire up a new thread.

[agulati]

Looking forward to see how the Audi team does this year.

[Cecil Terwilliger]

Aston is late and Williams might not even show up at all. Not a great start for Williams. For Aston they’ve got Newey so there’s at least some hope.

[DoubleK]

The cars look much, much better. Wish they were a bit smaller, but this is a move in the right direction.

[woob]

I'm in!

[fleuryisgod]

If anyone comes across a promo code for F1TV can you post it in here please! I need to renew at some point this and I thought they go on sale at some point during the off season.

[FurnaceFace]

I have never seen a sale previous years, but vould have missed it. That doesn't feel like the F1 way...I'm more surprised they haven't raised the prices.

[Cecil Terwilliger]

[fleuryisgod]

Randomly got a 15% discount today from an Instagram add. So if anyone else is looking for discount time, it's apparently now.

Originally Posted by fleuryisgod

If anyone comes across a promo code for F1TV can you post it in here please! I need to renew at some point this and I thought they go on sale at some point during the off season.

[DoubleK]

I hope these cars race as good as they look.

This is a massive improvement.

[Ironhorse]

From the sounds of it, the racing is quite #####e. Verstappen, Hamilton and Alsonso have all spoken out against it, saying it isn't racing anymore, but battery management. It seems that the FIA may have got this horribly wrong.

[Cecil Terwilliger]

Some interesting storylines to follow going into the season.

By all accounts overtaking will be atrocious but we may have some other interesting things to enjoy.

Is the Merc engine able to achieve a higher compression ratio and give them a leg up on power

Ferrari apparently has a smaller turbo that spools faster and gives them a huge advantage on race starts and maybe in slower corners.

Ferrari is also testing a rear wing that flips upside down when it opens. It’s crazy looking. https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/co...t=share_button


Aston is a disaster. They’ll be lucky to finish a race let alone worry about being 4s off the pace.

Cadillac hasn’t exactly impressed but Audi looks reasonably competitive.

[Ironhorse]

"Formula 1 is now Formula E on steroids."

- Max Verstappen

[calgarygeologist]

It's going to be really interesting to see if Ferrari uses the rotating wing this year. It looks super cool and I love seeing the innovation.

[FLAMESRULE]

I'm buried with work and life again...but just throwing it out there if anyone has ideas or proposed changes for the 2026 F1 pool??

I'd like to see the scoring changed a bit. Instead of the same 4 points for a correctly slotted maybe we go 1 for P1, 10 for P10. Or even 3 for P1-3, 4 for P4-P6, 5 for P7-10. I know its a new car/formula this year but still...

Thinking $25/entry.

Looking forward to seeing these cars actually race...and if Aston Martin can get within 107%. Lol.

[DoubleK]

Originally Posted by FLAMESRULE

I'm buried with work and life again...but just throwing it out there if anyone has ideas or proposed changes for the 2026 F1 pool??

I'd like to see the scoring changed a bit. Instead of the same 4 points for a correctly slotted maybe we go 1 for P1, 10 for P10. Or even 3 for P1-3, 4 for P4-P6, 5 for P7-10. I know its a new car/formula this year but still...

Thinking $25/entry.

Looking forward to seeing these cars actually race...and if Aston Martin can get within 107%. Lol.

I think you should get two points for correct slotted positions one through five and three points for 6 to 10, or some variation thereof. So, the second example you have listed. It would be gross to have someone pick the podium correctly and lose out to someone who picked one of 8, 9, or 10 correctly.

A$$ton Martin is in for a world of hurt.

[3thirty]

Guess money can't just buy AM wins.

and I'm fine with $25 and making the later picks worth a bit more

[dammage79]

Honda's really fallen off a cliff in the PU department. AM being the only customer sucks. I think Newey probably built a car that could win if it had a capable PU.

How fast can they change PU suppliers if they could

[Frequitude]

Been interested in joining form
the last couple years. What’s the framework for commitment / what picks are due and when?

[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by dammage79

Honda's really fallen off a cliff in the PU department. AM being the only customer sucks. I think Newey probably built a car that could win if it had a capable PU.

How fast can they change PU suppliers if they could

I've heard that Newey was demanding really tight packaging for the PU, so it wouldn't be a matter of just swapping in a new lump.

Another thing I've heard is that Honda (and maybe Japanese companies in general) like to move engineers throughout the organization, so there is probably not a lot of continuity from the last time they birthed a new F1 engine...so they could be tripping over a lot of the same pitfalls again. I'm sure that's a over simplistic and I'd imagine engine engineers don't move over to the infotainment division, but it could be a part of the culture compatibility issues that seem to persist.