WardenOfTheNorth wrote: ↑02 Jul 2026, 15:59
WHEN did Max drive it in the simulator? Strange that he'd talk about that when he's spend a day driving the circuit in the real car a coupe of months ago for a filming day.
I am thinking that's an old quote being dragged out to feed the bias of the "2026 is crap" crowd who apparently care more a how long the cars are at full throttle than whether we have close competitive racing. Oh and not forgetting that the cars are too quiet (even though they're louder than a heavy rock concert in terms of decibels.
You can pull your head out of the sand now. They've already changed the regs for the next season and the FIA president can't stop talking about V8s in the first year of a new regulation. Do you think this is a sign that they are happy with the product?
Here's reality for you:
Why Silverstone will bring out the worst of F1 2026 https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/f1-d ... 2026-cars/
"I think this is going to be the most unprecedented weekend in terms of the power deployment," said Hamilton.
"All us drivers have been talking in the drivers' chat about just how poor the power is going to be through this track.
"We run out of battery power, there's only a few corners to charge the engine, so the [MGU-]K will be switched off for a large portion of the lap."
"Honestly, I think it's going to be huge. If you look at the speed traces, we start losing deployment going into Copse," he said.
"Normally the engine’s screaming as you're going into Copse, and you're holding on for dear life as you go through there flat out.
"This year, the engine will be coasting down, most likely will be downshifting whilst full throttle, trying to keep the engine revs higher. It'll be a long, long straight with no deployment, basically.
"And then Maggotts and Becketts is not going to feel the same because I think you have to lift and coast or something through there for a period of time. So it's just a completely different track.
Alonso said that Becketts had now become a "charging station" for the cars.
The Aston Martin driver also offered a downbeat assessment of how things will play out both this weekend and in the next race at Spa-Francorchamps.
"I think this year is going to be very different and not fun to drive," he said. "The cars, looking at the simulator lap and things like that, is going to be quite sad, I think for drivers, but also for the spectators, and vice versa."
Alpine driver Franco Colapinto said he was keeping his fingers crossed that the cars in real life were improved compared to how they had been during preparation runs in the simulator.
"Hopefully it's better than the sim," he said. "It was tough. I think generally it's a track that you always love driving at and that you push the F1 cars to the limit.
"Before the year started we already knew that Silverstone, Australia, Japan/Suzuka were going to be tracks that were going to be difficult with energy and that we would be running out with so long straights and with no braking at all almost.
"You're flat for 2km or something like that. It's going to be difficult. I think these corners are going to become less of a corner almost. Let's see tomorrow."
"A lot of the tracks with the most character in the previous generation, the fast-flowing high-speed circuits now just lack reward when driving them, and that hurts a bit," said Ollie Bearman.
"And one of maybe the ballsiest sections of track of the whole year - which was Maggotts and Becketts - this year it seems to be just one corner, and the bits before you're going so slow because you don't have any power that it's not actually a corner anymore."
Perez said: "It's really what's more optimal for the engine, for the energy.
"Sometimes I think we're going to be finding a case where probably going slower through the corner ultimately will be faster.
