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Surley albons car wasn't safe given the lack of wingmirror

Well in V10 and V8 era, Renault engine is one of the best engine on the grid there are many example like Alonso in 2005&06 or Vettel 2010-13 but when F1 switch from v8 to V6 Hybrid,the Renault engine seem just downbad example like Riccardo 8 DNF in the 2018 or like last week Gasly DNF after the engine just blow up at 12k RPM in Vegas.Alpine since 2026 season will stop use their engine and use Mercedes engine so what make Renault struggle in turbo hybrid era?

Is it a technical thing? Are there rules about it? Would it be one distraction too many? Or would the engineers/strategists in the pit prefer not to let the drivers make decions between themselves given that the drivers "can't see the whole board"?

How will they adapt the number of drivers eliminated during Q1, Q2 and Q3?

Which technologies would you like to see in Formula 1 in the near or distant future?

For me, it’s:

superlubricity,: https://newatlas.com/materials/superlubricity-friction-machines/

axial flux motors: https://www.wired.com/story/yasa-motors-mercedes-axial-flux-2024/

and solid-state batteries/superbatteries.

EDIT: And about this, I have little knowledge. But perhaps this could be further developed as a replacement for the MGU-H. However, this is highly speculative: https://www.motortrend.com/news/rimac-supercar-liquid-fuel-nanotube-engine-technology-experiment/

Every time someone gripes about Pirelli tires in F1, you inevitable see people mention how the FIA sets requirement for the degradation rate of each hard, medium, and soft tire. We also know in Indycar while the tires are more durable, they are still designed to degrade artificially.

You also see some people say that if Pirelli were allowed to, they could make a tire that lasts the entire season. Would they come at the cost of grip, or would the tire remain, otherwise, the same?

Do any race series use tires designed to be as durable as possible? WEC tires can be triple stint for up to 3 hours, but are there tires also limited the same way like in F1, but with a slower minimum degradation rate? How were F1 tires regulated during the early Bridgestone/Michelin tire wars? What about in SuperGT with their tire wars? Why doesn't any race series adopt unrestricted tires to reduce costs over a weekend?

I'm currently a 2nd year material engineering student. I'm in a drone team and work on design and fabrication and compete in competitions. We even have won some. I know it's not f1 but at least it's something. I really wanna get the student placement. My gpa is ok too. I just want to know how to prep and when to start the application process.

Where does the weather data teams use to set up the car and formulate race strategy come from? Are they relying on local sources? Does F1 setup its own weather stations that all teams have access to? Or does each team have its own source?

Say a car is running at the back, and is lapped by the leader. If a red flag comes then they are put in P20 for the restart. They then charge through the field and cross the chequered flag in P1. Are they awarded the win? They didn't drive the full race distance.

Hi everyone,

I’m from Argentina, and recently, with Franco Colapinto gaining attention, Formula 1 has become incredibly popular in my country. I've noticed an increasing number of telemetry analyses comparing Franco's laps to other drivers, often shared by media outlets, including those specializing in motorsport. However, I’ve observed significant mistakes or perhaps omissions in how this data is presented.

Many analyses rely heavily on the F1-Tempo Delta between laps of two different drivers, typically comparing the best qualifying lap of teammates (e.g., Colapinto vs. Albon). These deltas are used to illustrate how time differences evolve throughout the lap, sector by sector, corner by corner, and on straights.

While these graphs might seem insightful, the Delta values should not be treated as absolute truth due to the nature of the publicly available data. These discrepancies aren't caused by flaws in visualization tools like F1-Tempo (an excellent platform, by the way) but rather by the limitations of the underlying data. When differences are within tenths, hundredths, or even thousandths of a second, the Delta becomes unreliable for precise analysis. Comparing these values to official sector times, which are accurate and publicly available, reveals these inconsistencies.

My questions to the community are:

1. Have you seen any resources, videos, or articles where someone explains these limitations to a broader audience?
2. If so, could you share them here? I’d love to promote such work and use it to help the general audience better understand these analyses and not take them as absolute truth.

I’ve tried explaining this within smaller circles, and while it works, it's time-consuming and challenging to scale for a broader audience. If someone has done similar work or knows of examples that clarify this issue in an accessible way, I’d be grateful if you could point me in the right direction.

Finally, I want to emphasize that this is not a critique of F1-Tempo—it’s a fantastic platform I use regularly. My point is about understanding the data’s limitations and knowing how far we can take such analyses.

Thanks in advance for any input or suggestions!

This might be a simply answered question, or it might be complex, but it's worth asking:

We all know that when you introduce a roll-cage into a road car you create significant stiffness, creating significant strength and allowing you to change many other characteristics of the car. The halo has a similar safety function, and due to its strength and attachment to the rest of the vehicle must be able to resist and transfer significant load forces.

There's plenty on the halo's role in safety (understandable) but I haven't found anything on how it might function as an exterior part of the chassis or allow/force teams to change their vehicles in other ways

Edit: Obviously I'm not comparing an F1 chassis to a road car, which is a packet of wet noodles in comparison. The analogy is only there to illustrate the way in which rigidity can be shifted to different structures within the vehicle, which has flow on effects in how you build the car

There are a lot of comments about the value of experience in F1 and how this comes into play for a driver's performance. I know that a lot of rookie drivers come in, or even drivers still in their first few years in F1, and they'll perform a lot better (in terms of general performance and relative to their teammate) on tracks that they have experience on, compared to those that they haven't really raced at. This year, the strongest example is probably Piastri, who had quite a strong performance over the European races where he's had more racing experience, but has then had some underwhelming races throughout the rest of the season. Of course, experience will always help certain aspects of a driver's racing but l'm curious as to what the extent of experience enhancing a driver’s performance actually is. Does experience actually have a significant effect on performance or can this vary from driver to driver? If it does affect performance, how does it actually do so and are there any decent examples?

Posted a question on here the other day but seeing as this subreddit usually has the best answers, figured I would ask this one as well. I’m mainly curious as there's always arguments about experience when discussing a driver's talent e.g Norris lacking experience at the front, Piastri lacking experience in comparison to Norris, or even discussions on if rookies like Antonelli will have enough junior experience before reaching F1.

Hi, I'm just curious what's the capacity of a F1 ES compared to a electric car battery, but i can't seem to find any reliable data, either capacity or the voltage the systems works with. Thanks!

After watching another street circuit race, just curious if there’s any rules regarding a certain width to allow for cars to be side by side. I think this is especially relevant in Monaco, otherwise overtaking would be impossible on certain circuits. Thanks!

Good morning F1Technical!

Please post your queries as posts on their own right, this is not intended to be a megathread

Its Wednesday, so today we invite you to post any F1 or Motorsports in general queries, which may or may not have a technical aspect.

The usual rules around joke comments will apply, and we will not tolerate bullying, harassment or ridiculing of any user who posts a reasonable question. With that in mind, if you have a question you've always wanted to ask, but weren't sure if it fitted in this sub, please post it!

This idea is currently on a trial basis, but we hope it will encourage our members to ask those questions they might not usually - as per the announcement post, sometimes the most basic of questions inspire the most interesting discussions.

Whilst we encourage all users to post their inquiries during this period, please note that this is still F1Technical, and the posts must have an F1 or Motorsports leaning!

With that in mind, fire away!

Cheers

B

Hi all, I'm a newer f1 fan. Frequently throughout the broadcast, the commentators will talk about a driver being in the clean air as if it's more advantageous than being in the dirty air directly behind a car.

If being in the dirty air is bad for lap times, why do drivers use other cars for the slipstream?

What is the proverbial line in the sand between a slipstream being effective or not effective due to dirty air?

I mean they drill for hours and hours to be the quickest to change four tires, but aren't ready to drill the "jump into action" part of their job? Think o the benefits, especially if youre at the exit end of the pit lane: You could go for a pit stop before a rival teamcan see your mechanics getting ready, fake them out. Every time I see a shot of the mechanics they're chilling in their lawn chairs waiting for something to happen.

There's been quite a few posts on social media about the pace difference in Vegas between Lando and Oscar. It seems as though much of this gap comes from the last stint, as before that the two were back and forth between laps, mostly in the favour of Lando but not by as much of a gap. I know that in the third stint Oscar was told he needed to do some significant tire management once he got into free air, as their priority was keeping others behind rather than catching Lando. The gap between the two was steadily growing until around lap 39 when Oscar's pace seemed to drop off massively compared to Lando, who was then around 1.1-1.3 seconds faster per lap.

Two questions about this. Was the difference in race pace during the third stint partially down to Oscar saving tires and Lando seemingly being allowed to push a little more? And, was the pace difference from lap 39-50 down to McLaren creating a big enough gap for Lando to be able to pit for the fastest lap?

If not, why did the two develop such a big difference in pace?

Hello! During the Las Vegas GP it was quite evident that the Mercedes were in a field of their own- George Russell in particular. With that comes perhaps a basic strategy question!

If GR had so much raw pace, and was holding back in the way the team has told the media, why pit at similar times to the cars with degraded tires? Why not extend the stint so each following stint can have a larger tire delta?

Thanks in advance!

If I’m not mistaken, I believe you can layer carbon fiber in a way that can control how it bends and flexes under load. An example of this would be how the 2021 Mercedes’ rear wing “leaned” backwards at high speed and McLaren’s DRS flap in Baku. Is there resistance curve that increases as you get deeper into the crash structures?

Also, the Boeing 787 Dreamliner is made mostly of composite materials. A carbon reinforced plastic fuselage is created by a machine that automatically lays down the material instead of a trained engineer doing it by hand. Do F1 teams use this technology or are their parts too intricate/small to benefit from an automated system?

Not even just Colapinto but also other drivers. I'm no expert in physics or a doctor but that seems like a lot of force on your body and I don't see how anyone could be healthy enough to do a race the day after. I'm just wondering how come drivers are able to be okay after a big crash like that?

A grand Chelem is scored in motor racing if a driver scores pole position in qualifying, the fastest lap in the race and then winning while leading every lap of the race

Does this mean leading at the start line of every lap or at every moment of the lap?

So hypothetically it's my last race in a technical role in RB with access to car systems for the race. I've decided that I'm going out with a bang and wanted to troll the team and the driver, is there anything I could do to brick the car safely from trackside/MK?

We hear about track evolution every week as if tracks actually change so rapidly that waiting out just a couple of minutes in qualifying can make a difference, but how much of an improvement is actually made to the track after the first few laps of clearing dust?

The way it’s always seemed to me is that the track doesn’t actually evolve that much. Rather the drivers are just getting more and more comfortable with the limits of their car on track the longer a session runs, both because of their direct experience on track as well as seeing others in other cars push the limits of certain sections of the track.

So let's say for a miracle v12 were to make a comeback, in order to have the same safety measure we have today, fuel-wise, how much bigger would the fuel tank need to be to store enough fuel to power the car through an entire race without refueling?

From quick online searches allegedly turbo V6 are up to 50% more fuel efficient, so maybe the fuel tank would need to be 50% larger?

Thanks.