2026 Japanese Grand Prix

Surprisingly, Ferrari and McLaren closed the gap somewhat. to Mercedes. The Ferraris were fast but very loose in the tail, so if they get a handle on that they will make up more time. Piastri headed FP2 and Lando had limited laps but still managed to get 5th, so McLaren appears to be back in the fight.

Results

Of course, it's just practice and they still have FP3 to get the cars dialed in
 
It's probably not even a bold prediction anymore.
Max won't be on the 2027 grid. He's not just pissed about the new regulations, he's pissed that Red Bull can't keep up and he's even more pissed that the others are no longer pissed about the new cars.
 
donthaveanickname said:
It's probably not even a bold prediction anymore.
Max won't be on the 2027 grid. He's not just pissed about the new regulations, he's pissed that Red Bull can't keep up and he's even more pissed that the others are no longer pissed about the new cars.
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He's just a giant crybaby that whines whenever things don't go his way and can't make a clean overtake if his life depended on it. He's bad for the sport. I don't see how he has any fans.
 
It’s very funny that we’re still doing these charades to pretend the cars definitely aren’t losing 35 MPH while full throttle. Not sure who the hell they think they’re fooling here, but they’re committed.



 
Marcingak said:
He's just a giant crybaby that whines whenever things don't go his way and can't make a clean overtake if his life depended on it. He's bad for the sport.
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No.
No.
Hell no.
A thousand times no.

In 2025 Max proved beyond any doubt that he's the best race car driver in the world by a wide margin. Losing him would be a catastrophe to F1. His in-race whining hasn't been worse than others' and his views about the sport have been largely consistent.
 
On one single TV screen, I have a 4K TV broadcast, a 4K track map with every driver's position, a 4K leaderboard with a ****load of live data, and an alternating on board camera. I can put anything I want in full screen on quad view seamlessly. This is just an absolutely immersive television experience.

NASCAR, Versant (USA), Amazon (Prime), and Nexstar (CW) need to get together and make this happen.
 
Antonelli has been sublime since that disastrous start to the China Sprint. Easily the quickest driver out there today, dunking anywhere from 0.5-1.0s per lap on Piastri after the restart. And he was rapidly catching Russell prior to the safety car. If he and Merc can figure out the starts he’ll be awfully tough to beat.

It was nice to have McLaren in the mix for the first time this season.
 
The big surprise is that not only did Alonso finish, but he was also only 1 lap behind. I think that's almost as good as a win considering where they started.
 
donthaveanickname said:
In 2025 Maxp...... Losing him would be a catastrophe to F1.
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F1 has had catastrophes before. Losing Max would go right there with Stewart, Lauda, Vettel and others retiring, but it didn't kill the sport. I kind of doubt Max will join another team, so he'll just race GTs (and hopefully hypercars) all over the world. I'm sure he would have a better time than what he is doing now.
His in-race whining hasn't been worse than others' and his views about the sport have been largely consistent.
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I was about three years ago that Max did some sim work on the 26 car and was complaining about downshifting on the straights. Why would no one listen then? Better still, why is no one listening now?
 
LeClerc and Hamilton can really put on a awesome show in those Ferraris
when they are close for a few laps.

On Max, it was 3 or 4 years ago in an interview where he mentioned
something to the effect that he did not see F1 being his one and
only racing experience. I actually thought he was ready to leave F1
back around that time. It could have been (partly) because of the Horner
effect though at the time.
 
Hotrod said:
LeClerc and Hamilton can really put on a awesome show in those Ferraris
when they are close for a few laps.

On Max, it was 3 or 4 years ago in an interview where he mentioned
something to the effect that he did not see F1 being his one and
only racing experience. I actually thought he was ready to leave F1
back around that time. It could have been (partly) because of the Horner
effect though at the time.
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At this rate, LecLerc and Hamilton are gonna crash into each other sometime in this season.
 
donthaveanickname said:
He's not just pissed about the new regulations, he's pissed that Red Bull can't keep up and he's even more pissed that the others are no longer pissed about the new cars.
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I actually thought this past weekend the rest of the grid was quite vocal about how things are playing out with the ambitious ICE/electrical split and how much the software dictates what happens on track - even more so after the Bearman/Colapinto incident. Nothing much more dangerous than the car in front of you suddenly and unpredictably emptying its juice box.







 
FLRacingFan said:
I actually thought this past weekend the rest of the grid was quite vocal about how things are playing out with the ambitious ICE/electrical split and how much the software dictates what happens on track - even more so after the Bearman/Colapinto incident. Nothing much more dangerous than the car in front of you suddenly and unpredictably emptying its juice box.







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The comments after China seemed much less negative than after Melbourne which is why no changes were made before Suzuka.

Bearman's crash was absolutely brutal and it's bound to happen again.

I have mixed views about the new regs so far. I like the fact that we're now seeing passes in places where we've never seen passing before but it shouldn't come at the expense of safety.

They also need to reduce the electrical power for qualifying. Saving tires, fuel or in this case energy has always been a part of racing but qualifying should be a flat-out blast.
 
Doc Austin said:
I believe the answer is simple. Enforce a lower deployment race on the battery. Sure, they will be slower overall, but that would eliminate any clipping.
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That’s probably the only viable short-term solution. Long-term there needs to be a come to Jesus moment that a 55/45 split was too ambitious with only the MGU-K as a harvesting source.
 
FLRacingFan said:
That’s probably the only viable short-term solution. Long-term there needs to be a come to Jesus moment that a 55/45 split was too ambitious with only the MGU-K as a harvesting source.
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If they had shot for 75/25 they may have had a chance to hit it. 50/50 was way too ambitious. The technology just simply doesn't exist.
 
donthaveanickname said:
The comments after China seemed much less negative than after Melbourne which is why no changes were made before Suzuka.

Bearman's crash was absolutely brutal and it's bound to happen again.

I have mixed views about the new regs so far. I like the fact that we're now seeing passes in places where we've never seen passing before but it shouldn't come at the expense of safety.

They also need to reduce the electrical power for qualifying. Saving tires, fuel or in this case energy has always been a part of racing but qualifying should be a flat-out blast.
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There are a lot of components of this reg change that are directionally positive - namely narrower and shorter cars, narrower tires, less aero/dirty air, less weight. I don’t think that outweighs the apparent miscalculation in the PU formula, and ‘Overtake Mode’ somehow comes off as even more of a crutch for passing than DRS in having the one detection point for an entire lap worth of more energy. And since cars shed so much speed prior to the biggest braking points, braking zones aren’t as long as they could be. Also, we’re still stuck with 1-stop races because they’re not loading the tires.
 
Here's what I learned flying high performance R/C planes. The harder you hit the battery, the faster it would run down. Here we would drop prop diameter/pitch to lessen the load we asked from the battery, and it resulted in longer run times.

Certainly, it would be a short-term fix, and the cars would be slower, but it would be a fix and they can always raise the deployment rate later.
 
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