F1 2026 - Round 3 - Japan - Suzuka 🇯🇵

ShamoBuc · 29-03-2026 02:38PM

Race was fairly poor for the most part, nearly 20 laps when nothing really happened. Atrocious start by the Mercs but after the safety car, the race was as good as over. Nice to see Piastri get second and good to see a liittle racing from the Ferrari's. Max and Hadjar had a overtake battles and Bearman seemed fine after a 50G crash. A real pity we have an 'early season break' but such is life. It gives all the teams a real opportunity to weed out the bugd in the system and it will be interesting to see who has made the most progress in Miami.

PsychoPete · 29-03-2026 03:15PM

I'd be surprised if we don't see some changes

Jaffa3000 · 29-03-2026 03:20PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124349051#Comment_124349051

Given that all the current feedback was available 2+ years ago its a colossal failure on the FIA's part. The solution is not complicated either

Harika · 29-03-2026 04:57PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124348855#Comment_124348855

That's happening in all racing series since the dawn of time, with some exceptions of slipstream battles in motorcycle races. Battling cars tend to go slower as they can't stay on the ideal racing line and defend.

Frank Bullitt · 29-03-2026 06:17PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124348609#Comment_124348609

What’s worse, we then have Toto Wolff calling this “real racing”. That’s rather pathetic for him to say, I wonder why???

Jaffa3000 · 29-03-2026 06:43PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124349501#Comment_124349501

To be fair its in his interest to say that as he essentially has a guaranteed WCC & WDC at the moment

Frank Bullitt · 29-03-2026 08:17PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124349556#Comment_124349556

Oh of course. He lobbied for changes in 2022 when they fumbled their car, but consistency from team principles (any of them) is rare.

Barrett · 30-03-2026 12:36AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124349051#Comment_124349051

They have enough time to think and work on making any changes, as the next race is more than a month away.

flazio · 30-03-2026 07:28AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124350091#Comment_124350091

Takes way more than a month to develop a new engine though, which is kind of what we need here. Audi and Ford have no experience with the last version of the regulations so they can't revert back to last years power trains.

sk8board · 30-03-2026 11:54AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124349317#Comment_124349317

absolutely, but this years car loses far more lap time from energy deployment in the wrong places than it does from traditional car positioning and defending the racing line.

In the drs era, if the cars in e.g p2 & 3 were within drs, they lost very little time to the car ahead, simply because pushing for fast lap times was the best means of defence.

pressing a button that deploys energy in a part of the course you don’t want to so you can defend, robs you of energy/lap time further along in the lap where you don’t need to defend.

Meanwhile the car that’s clear is pressing the button in all the right places and streaking clear in 3-4 laps.

artanevilla · 30-03-2026 11:57AM

There must be a bunch of V12s sitting in a warehouse somewhere they can bolt on to them.

weisses · 30-03-2026 12:19PM

Its suppose to be the pinnacle of motorsport, It turned into a harvesting competition, cars doing "superclipping", managing the battery, managing the tyres, managing the engine, hardly any actions/overtakes are due to the talent of the driver anymore, no wonder the real racers are having serious issues with this concept.