Silly season 2025-2026

[WardenOfTheNorth]

Toto is as much an accident of Brixworth as Hamilton was. What are people expecting? There's no guarantee of a repeat of 2014, because the engine regulations changes are of a different nature. If anything, the regs are becoming slightly simpler (no MGUH, no split turbo, lower ICE power at the same displacement) and no new tech is being introduced, only a rearrangement of what Honda, Mercedes, Renault, and Ferrari are already familiar with. Plus, there are the relatively larger aero regualtions changes (compared to 2014) happening at the same time, and we don't know who will have the best first iteration of it. Easy to say it will be Newey and AMR, but it will be only their first season together. Judging by 2025, McLaren could well bring the best 2026 aero package of the Mercedes engined cars. Verstappen must surely be aware of all of this.

Which is why the most logical thing to do is stay put for now and decide next year.

[basti313]

Toto is as much an accident of Brixworth as Hamilton was. What are people expecting? There's no guarantee of a repeat of 2014, because the engine regulations changes are of a different nature. If anything, the regs are becoming slightly simpler (no MGUH, no split turbo, lower ICE power at the same displacement) and no new tech is being introduced, only a rearrangement of what Honda, Mercedes, Renault, and Ferrari are already familiar with.

The question is, who is working longer on the project, who has more money in the project.
Plus I agree on the point, that those with existing engines have a big benefit.
So:
Let us exclude Renault (not there), Ford and Audi. They do not have any experience or data from the current ICE, which will be crucial.
I would also exclude Honda. They started to work at least one year later on the new engine (at least: although the rules were not clear, the new direction was clear and the project teams and plans were set earlier). Plus, they gave RB some last upgrades and are silent since then. In contrast Merc just introduced a new "reliability" upgrade.
Therefore we end up with Merc and Ferrari. Anyone else can not have a benefit by engineering and experience, but needs to find some magic bullet.

Plus, there are the relatively larger aero regualtions changes (compared to 2014) happening at the same time, and we don't know who will have the best first iteration of it. Easy to say it will be Newey and AMR, but it will be only their first season together. Judging by 2025, McLaren could well bring the best 2026 aero package of the Mercedes engined cars. Verstappen must surely be aware of all of this.

Same here. We can look at who is working well on the new project.
We know that Merc and Ferrari are all-in on the new car.
RedBull is fighting itself.
McLaren knows, that this is their season, they just brought a major upgrade to win this season. They are in my point of view half a year behind Merc and Ferrari with additionally the penalty for P1 in two seasons.
Aston still did correlation work, they are late with their windtunnel. Same here...they need a magic bullet.
The rest is not up to it yet. Maybe Sauber, but I would exclude them because of the engine.

There are quite clearly two places to be...Ferrari and Merc. Verstappen knows this.
And all this "risk" talk. There is one thing clear: The engine project is in deep --- and the aero engineering is falling apart. All magic bullets are spread to other teams. There is not a single reason to believe RedBull is coming out of this as a winner.

[WardenOfTheNorth]

...


We know that Merc and Ferrari are all-in on the new car.

...

McLaren knows, that this is their season, they just brought a major upgrade to win this season. They are in my point of view half a year behind Merc and Ferrari with additionally the penalty for P1 in two seasons.

Merc and Ferrari both have updates still to come and both have stated that they are continuing to try and understand why their current cars are not behaving as they should. That takes time and resources.

McLaren may have their last upgrade, but that will have been pipelined for months.

McLaren have the benefit of being able to focus fully on next season AND they have shown excellent correlation between CFD, Wind Tunnel and real world.

Mercedes have yet to show that they can build a consistently fast car in the ground effect era and Ferrari are, well, being the same Ferrari they have been since 2008!!

[purestpurist]

Toto is as much an accident of Brixworth as Hamilton was. What are people expecting? There's no guarantee of a repeat of 2014, because the engine regulations changes are of a different nature. If anything, the regs are becoming slightly simpler (no MGUH, no split turbo, lower ICE power at the same displacement) and no new tech is being introduced, only a rearrangement of what Honda, Mercedes, Renault, and Ferrari are already familiar with. Plus, there are the relatively larger aero regualtions changes (compared to 2014) happening at the same time, and we don't know who will have the best first iteration of it. Easy to say it will be Newey and AMR, but it will be only their first season together. Judging by 2025, McLaren could well bring the best 2026 aero package of the Mercedes engined cars. Verstappen must surely be aware of all of this.

Which is why the most logical thing to do is stay put for now and decide next year.

This seems to be the consensus opinion of what Max should do, but it exposes him to the risk of being locked out if one team really nails it like Mercedes did in 2014. Most would agree Max is the best driver in f1 right now, but if one team is dominant that won't matter (unless it's amr with ancient alonso and stroll) because their current lineup will be more than adequate to win.

[toraabe]

https://www.gptoday.com/full_story/view ... e_is_made/

If Fred leaves Lewis leaves... Fred is his anchor at Ferrari............

[basti313]

This seems to be the consensus opinion of what Max should do, but it exposes him to the risk of being locked out if one team really nails it like Mercedes did in 2014.

I do not see, why this plays any role. I mean, you yourself diminish this argument a sentence later. If one team is dominant, it will just keep the lineup. And if Merc is bad, Max will have another performance clause to pull.

I think the difficulty at the moment is rather that he needs to run from these Bulls.

If Fred leaves Lewis leaves... Fred is his anchor at Ferrari............

Because Buxton sais so????
Same topic here: If Lewis and Ferrari win, he will stay. If 2026 is similarly bad for him as 2025, he will most probably not be in F1 in 2027.
The big question is how the new cars will react to the driver lines. There was a nice article about late braking and the V vs. U style around Hulkenberg. There is actually a good chance, that the new cars will need even more a U shaped cornering technique. This will hurt Lewis even more.

[dren]

What about the Mario Kart E cornering technique?

[mzso]

Which is why the most logical thing to do is stay put for now and decide next year.

As long as you only have the facts that are visible from outside. If from the inside he sees that the team is imploding and everything is going downhill it's a different situation. We can't know. Maybe the talk is among team members that the engine can't last a race weekand and barely produces power, and/or the aero team can't come up with something that works as intended or drivable. Maybe everything is all fine and this is just noise.

[WardenOfTheNorth]

Which is why the most logical thing to do is stay put for now and decide next year.

As long as you only have the facts that are visible from outside. If from the inside he sees that the team is imploding and everything is going downhill it's a different situation. We can't know. Maybe the talk is among team members that the engine can't last a race weekand and barely produces power, and/or the aero team can't come up with something that works as intended or drivable. Maybe everything is all fine and this is just noise.

Even then though, why risk being stuck in a team which is not the best for the next couple of seasons, when he could stick it out for a season and have multiple options?

I just cannot compute any logical reason to gamble like that.

[mzso]

Which is why the most logical thing to do is stay put for now and decide next year.

As long as you only have the facts that are visible from outside. If from the inside he sees that the team is imploding and everything is going downhill it's a different situation. We can't know. Maybe the talk is among team members that the engine can't last a race weekand and barely produces power, and/or the aero team can't come up with something that works as intended or drivable. Maybe everything is all fine and this is just noise.

Even then though, why risk being stuck in a team which is not the best for the next couple of seasons, when he could stick it out for a season and have multiple options?

I just cannot compute any logical reason to gamble like that.

I would assume he would only go with good exit clauses.

[WardenOfTheNorth]

As long as you only have the facts that are visible from outside. If from the inside he sees that the team is imploding and everything is going downhill it's a different situation. We can't know. Maybe the talk is among team members that the engine can't last a race weekand and barely produces power, and/or the aero team can't come up with something that works as intended or drivable. Maybe everything is all fine and this is just noise.

Even then though, why risk being stuck in a team which is not the best for the next couple of seasons, when he could stick it out for a season and have multiple options?

I just cannot compute any logical reason to gamble like that.

I would assume he would only go with good exit clauses.

So I repeat my previous point. Why would a new team give him exit clauses that would allow him to leave after just one season? If its Merc then it would mean they'd be letting go of a driver they've backed for years (whether George or Kimi) who'd go to a rival team.

[mzso]

So I repeat my previous point. Why would a new team give him exit clauses that would allow him to leave after just one season? If its Merc then it would mean they'd be letting go of a driver they've backed for years (whether George or Kimi) who'd go to a rival team.

1. Because they think he's good and worth it.
2. They're confident that their car will perform.

[SB15]

So I repeat my previous point. Why would a new team give him exit clauses that would allow him to leave after just one season? If its Merc then it would mean they'd be letting go of a driver they've backed for years (whether George or Kimi) who'd go to a rival team.

1. Because they think he's good and worth it.
2. They're confident that their car will perform.

Well then what's the point if the car doesn't perform? It would be very wise to keep Russell and Antonelli to see what happens next year before making such a move.

[WardenOfTheNorth]

So I repeat my previous point. Why would a new team give him exit clauses that would allow him to leave after just one season? If its Merc then it would mean they'd be letting go of a driver they've backed for years (whether George or Kimi) who'd go to a rival team.

1. Because they think he's good and worth it.
2. They're confident that their car will perform.

But if the car doesn't perform, they lose Max AND lose either George or Kimi to a rival team... That would be very bad business.