2026 Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team

[AR3-GP]

Not sure if they are getting any boost from it though, Russell's lift-off (not shown above) looked more like just an "acknowledgement" of the quality of his lap, let's just say... And one would think there'd be enough opportunity in the bus stop to harvest enough energy for the run to the line even if one arrives there with a completely flat battery (thus cancelling out the intended benefit of this "trick"), right?

For a qualifying lap, the team knows they can use 7MJ (recovery) + 4MJ (full battery at start of lap). In the ideal case, you use the full amount of 11MJ ( 7+4) and save some of it for after the bus stop to the finish line. You want to deploy at 350kW all the way across the finish line and hit a total 11MJ of deployment right at the finish line. However without any clever reading of the rules, you must actually ramp down at 50kW/s to 0 before the finish line if you intend to cross the finish line at precisely 11MJ of total deployment.

With what Mercedes does, they can pull at 350kW for longer between the exit of bus stop and the finish line and it's the fastest way to use the energy. The other teams will use that energy in a less efficient way earlier in the lap since they are following the ramp down rule without any clever thinking.

The benefit is there, it's just the complicated rules make it hard to see the laptime that is being won until they cross the line. That's why someone can set pole with yellow S1 and S2.

[HungarianRacer]

Not sure if they are getting any boost from it though, Russell's lift-off (not shown above) looked more like just an "acknowledgement" of the quality of his lap, let's just say... And one would think there'd be enough opportunity in the bus stop to harvest enough energy for the run to the line even if one arrives there with a completely flat battery (thus cancelling out the intended benefit of this "trick"), right?

For a qualifying lap, the team knows they can use 7MJ (recovery) + 4MJ (full battery at start of lap). In the ideal case, you use the full amount of 11MJ ( 7+4) and save some of it for after the bus stop to the finish line. You want to deploy at 350kW all the way across the finish line and hit a total 11MJ of deployment right at the finish line. However without any clever reading of the rules, you must actually ramp down at 50kW/s to 0 before the finish line if you intend to cross the finish line at precisely 11MJ of total deployment.

With what Mercedes does, they can pull at 350kW for longer between the exit of bus stop and the finish line and it's the fastest way to use the energy. The other teams will use that energy in a less efficient way earlier in the lap since they are following the ramp down rule without any clever thinking.

The benefit is there, it's just the complicated rules make it hard to see the laptime that is being won until they cross the line. That's why someone can set pole with yellow S1 and S2.

Right, I had a few things mixed up in my head, disregard the part in the parentheses... My point is that - as it is clearly shown in the telemetry comparison - they are not gaining any extra acceleration from it, yet...

[AR3-GP]

Right, I had a few things mixed up in my head, disregard the part in the parentheses... My point is that - as it is clearly shown in the telemetry comparison - they are not gaining any extra acceleration from it, yet...

Okay I see. I think the laps that you selected are not lift off laps (in Antonelli's case it's not, Russell's case is something else, not a push lap I guess). In the lift off lap, the speed drops before the finish line. Here is Antonelli's lap 4 from FP2. This is more in line with how it looked at Silverstone. Merc's still sandbagging anyway, so just wait for qualifying.