BROKEN BEFORE IT'S EVEN IN? Opinions on the 'Undriveable' 2026 F1 Cars

[Music] we're about 2 years away from the reset button being hit with Formula 1 cars the FIA wants to change the engine regulations around a bit which will not only hopefully reset the pecking order for want of a better phrase but also try and reduce things down a little bit in terms of car size because well things have gone a bit too far in recent years haven't they I've covered the stuff surrounding the engines a couple of times before but well screw it let's do a recap just in case you've forgotten or aren't quite aware as to what is going to be happening or should be happening the FIA wants to change the construction of the engines so that the electrical output to IC output ratio is around 50/50 and it wants to ditch the mgu because no Road goinging car outside of things like the AMG project 1 and other hypercars based off Formula 1 designs don't have an mg G and it's also hoped that this will reduce the cost of an engine sorry a power unit saying power unit instead of engine is like saying Sports entertainment instead of professional wrestling anyway smaller engine construction might help reduce the overall weight and size of the car too as well as the costs although it has to be said that these new rules for 2026 haven't even been signed off yet the engine manufacturers don't know what they're getting in for they don't even know what they're building and really they need to start getting on top of this now or 3 months ago ideally the problem is though this isn't as simple as just removing the mg slapping bigger and more powerful batteries in altering some code on a computer and sending the cars on their way because as karun chandhok explained on skysports own podcast recently there are some other complexities that are presenting themselves and it looks like the chassis of the car in which this new setup is going to be in will have to be change to cope and there's more complexities on top of that too currently Formula 1 cars are exploiting ground effect air rushes through tunnels underneath the car and as it goes through these tunnels the air accelerates which at the same time reduces air pressure this low pressure pocket helps suck the car down to the ground and in theory reduces over Alliance on top side arrow that again in theory should make things easier for any car following because in days gone by there was this constant talk of Arrow wash tires being destroyed through under steering dirty air and so on and so on and so on in 2026 there's talk of possibly allowing some active Arrow what this means is the cars will be able to run an absolute boatload of front and rear wing in the corners but when they get out on a straight computer Wizardry kicks in and the wing flaps are reduced electronically to reduce drag and then you've got things like DRS on top of that that can still be used to facilitate overtaking so for example the teams could be running Monaco like levels of Arrow at Monza so that the cars can go through aari and the two lesmos pretty well and then have it all taken off on the long Straits to get them over 220 mph however this has not gone down well in the simulations simulators are great my channel started with them all right they're just Advanced video games but I enjoy them I use models contained within the simulators and games to show you cars I can't otherwise get pictures of or if I need to show you a close-up of a livery or some sort of innovative part of the car blown diffusers double diffusers and the fdct all spring to mind I showed you all of those in our factor or I can use them to show you how utterly hinged a modern F1 car would be around a certain track like I did when there was all that talk of just go to br's hatch when they needed tracks to fill the calendar back in 2020 although I should be putting illustrative purposes only on the bottom of these kinds of displays because as people are quick to always point out it's a video game I know that in the same way I know wrestling's fake the teams have currently got access to something simply called fanjo which is a baseline representation of what they think the cars are going to like in 2026 even though they've not actually confirmed what the cars in 2026 are going to be like so GG FIA sources have told Autosport that there is a massive problem with the ideas that they've currently got in mind to the point where the cars are undrivable not oh my God this is different to what I'm used to it needs x y and Zed doing to sort it out it's more even the best driver with the best reactions in the world is going to be in the wall this is literally undrivable at the point of writing fan appears to just have an active rear wing the wing can be run pretty high through the corners and then on the straights it can be turned down via a computer with the rear wing in its low drag configuration and the front Wing cranked up drivers have been spinning in a straight line and are also unable to take the slightest of slight Kinks to the left or right without crashing because of what can only be described as the most insane Arrow imbalance known to man so to paint a picture of all of this let's take a quick physics lesson and this can be tested by yourself in your favorite racing simulator I've chosen this particular one because this is what I use for almost all of my model close-ups and it looks the prettiest so I might as well stick with it I used to do this all the time on the Jeff CR and gr preg games for the fun of it and to be honest these simpler pre hybrid cars are easier to get the desired effect with you need the car to be balanced otherwise the car isn't going to handle well or perform well too much overall drag and you'll have great cornering speed but go too slow in a straight line too little downforce and you you find it incredibly difficult to get through the corners but you'll be a rocket ship in a straight line now there are other ways of setting the car up through suspension settings tow camber rake and other bits and pieces for extra mechanical grip or to get the most from the diffuser but we're only going to be focusing on topside Arrow here you can balance the wings to suit you and the track somewhere like Monza you might take all the rear wing off and set the front to have just enough so you can actually get some turning without scrubbing the front end across the road at Monaco you might crank it all the way up to to generate extra grip in the slow speed corners but the second the arrow balance is too far out you're going to run into some problems if the balance is too far rearward then the rear end is producing far too much downforce relative to the front and the front end won't turn the car will actually be generating lift at the front although it's not quite escudo Pikes peaking Gran Turismo 3 style wheelies but what they found in the simulators is the opposite there's too much Arrow weight on the front end so what I've done is I've set this car up to have maximum front wing and all the rear wing taken off and I'm going to lob it into cops corner at silverston to show you what the effect of that might be hello it's editing Aiden here uh slight issue with doing the demonstration that aeta corser just does not want to load for me I can load at the showroom no problem but actually getting into a driving session doesn't want to play ball so I'll just do it in a different one instead [Music] SS [Music] w [Music] because much like it was the other way around the rear end is actually slightly lifted off the ground it's obviously connected to the ground because you're still able to go forwards but you can do this at home by yourself you can just run your finger lightly across your arm like that and it's well it's pretty easy what you want is you want to push it in and generate that extra grip I mean that actually slightly hurts have overdone it slightly but hopefully you get the point what the teams have found is that this Arrow imbalance is three times what it currently is with DRS open try to go through cops with DRS open you're not making it through now imagine that Arrow imbalance being three times as bad it's so bad with so little grip and so much engine power that the drivers in the simulator had to ease off so much that they were slower than Formula 2 cars so the FIA is now thinking okay we need to have the front and rear wing both doing something sort of magic to effectively balance things out and help keep the cars safe but the teams can't do anything until they know what chassis they're going to be building with the engine regulations still not being signed off Christian hoer has expressed fears about teams having some sort of bodge job car because it's been left too late to build something around the engine because as kurran chandok has mentioned on the Sky Sports podcast this is probably the first time ever that the rules regarding the chassis will be determined by how the FIA wants the engines built as opposed to the team simply building the car to the rules and then sticking the engine in afterwards my question is why is it now the April of 2024 and still nothing signed off we had the hybrid regulations announced in 2011 yeah 2011 I had to weigh back machine my way through the fia's website yeah all right I used an external link from Wikipedia But the press release for the change to the hybrids was made on the 29th of June 2011 it's the 12th of April 2024 and still no confirmation on engine designs yet although they want it all signed up off by June and these engine regulation changes were designed to attract in the likes of Audi Porsche and other teams like that but now we're what 23 months away from testing in 2026 Ferrari Red Bull forever Honda Mercedes and Alpine assuming they're still around at this point well Renault anyway don't know what they're building so we could end up having another 2014 at this rate remember the early days of hybrid with the teams having engine turbo and mgu failures quite often okay back then it was Uncharted Territory it was going to have a few Kinks that needed ironing out and Honda with McLaren were meaned left right and Center because of the way the engines kept going pop but if there are problems with this regulation set then we can almost certainly start pointing fingers and saying you didn't give them enough time not only that but vapen has got some concerns that the 2026 regulations if they go as predicted will be based around who has the most engine power rather than who can get the arrow right and on top of that there are concerns that the teams might only have about 10 seconds of maximum electric boost so storing and deploying might end up being a mission with hornus saying they might have to downshift on a straight to recover energy as someone pointed out in a comment section somewhere a Euro Fighter can't stay in the air without a small army of computers constantly altering the flight surfaces legitimately if a computer crashes on a Euro Fighter it drops out of the sky that's how much it relies on computers because without them the pilot is going to have to check for traffic check for enemy assuming it's in a dog fight check this computer this computer this instrument that instrument and so on and actually the pilot can't react fast enough to make all the changes necessary to keep that plane in the air will Formula 1 cars need something similar so that the driver isn't going 180 mph with his eyes locked on a gauge on his steering wheel at the risk of sounding like a broken record this Arrow stuff baffles me not because I don't understand Arrow oh I mean I don't understand Arrow but it goes a little bit deeper than that it's seems that the FIA is trying to change the formula and do utterly unhinged things with it while preserving lap times the cars are going to be the fastest in the world around a circuit whatever you do with them a Formula 1 car is 10 seconds a lap faster than a Formula 2 car at Barcelona you can sacrifice 3 or 4 seconds a lap and still have them be a decent way faster than the feeder series or Indie Car I'd happily take 4 seconds slower than the previous generation of car if it means the cars can actually do some RAC with not too much dirty air interfering with the dude behind but the FIA is running out of time it needs to sign these things off pretty soon otherwise it's going to be another case of Formula 1 shooting itself in the foot that will just completely ruin the reputation of the sport if the cars keep breaking down every week but I'd like to know what you think so then this has been something happening in the world of Motorsport and this has been my opinion on that thing if this thing has made you think things about the thing then like this thing so I know I did a good job with the thing and for more things like this hit the Subscribe button thing and also ring the bell thing so you never miss out on anything that I do around here 500 subscribers to go until 100,000 at current rate of progress should be there by the end of this month massive thanks to the Fine folk at patreon that continue to support me at a more personal level and if you want to help keep things running around here a link to patreon is in the description along with links to Discord socials and other bits and Bobs that you might want or need to know or the super thanks down there if you want to buy me a coffee or memberships if you want to spam Roberto Moreno emojis in the comments so until next time I've been Adam award have a great day wherever you are and goodbye [Music]

Channel: Aidan Millward

Views: 48,403

Keywords: podcast, talking head, fast and the curious, p1 podcast, the race, autosport, tommo, matt and tommy, matt gallagher, aiden millward, pressing issues, story time, opinion, analysis, insight, reaction, breaking news, news, review, max verstappen, formula one, red bull, cars, motorsport, motor racing, f1, adrian newey, storytime, mercedes, toto wolff, 2026 f1 regs, discussion, bring back v10s podcast

Id: LxqZpbEZl1I

Length: 13min 26sec (806 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 12 2024