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2025 F1 Season (spoilers will be discussed)

stangmx13 said:
I didn’t think George would fade like that. I prob forgot that Merc’s tires don’t last when it’s even a little warm.

LeClerc and Lando drove really well. They used the clean air a ton to improve their races. I’m surprised at both their finishing positions.

I’m sad how much clean air is impacting this year already. That whole “make following easier” is fully dead rn.

Max is such a little bitch when he doesn’t get his way.
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As long as car sizes remain this big, following closely isn’t going to happen. Regardless of aero regs, large cars will create more dirty air which will eat up tires for the car behind.

The larger the car the further behind you need to be for the disruptive air to be settled. Drivers aren’t exaggerating when they say they need about a 3 second gap to get clean air.

Even Piastri on the McLaren, a car with the best wear characteristics on the grid, destroyed his fronts staying in Max’s wake during the first stint. To the point he was pitted early as his pace tanked and he was at risk to lose the second delta he had in hand due to the penalty.
 
It is the engineer's job to create as much dirty air as possible coming off the car without creating too much drag. The longer the rules stay the same, the more the engineer can figure out how to do this. IMHO, this is why it is harder to follow this year as it is the final year with the current rules.

I feel the FIA should come up with rules that would force the teams to clean up the air that comes off the car.
 
Robert R1 said:
As long as car sizes remain this big, following closely isn’t going to happen. Regardless of aero regs, large cars will create more dirty air which will eat up tires for the car behind.

The larger the car the further behind you need to be for the disruptive air to be settled. Drivers aren’t exaggerating when they say they need about a 3 second gap to get clean air.
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Ehh the main issue is how much, how well, and where the teams can work the air.

All the drivers are aiming for very similar lines. Smaller cars would create smaller wakes... which the smaller cars will still drive through. Reducing the car size to historical sizes would impact the follow distance in the short-term similar to 2022 IMO. But just like then, the teams will figure it all out and increase the wakes.

The longer cars def help them work the air "more". But it's not like teams wouldn't eventually work the air just as hard with shorter cars. The car width hasn't changed dramatically since "historical eras". The cars have been 1.8-2m for decades and will be 1.9m next year. The cars will also be ~0.2m shorter, but I don't expect this to truly impact much (not that we'll know because too many variables are changing)

The 2022 regs showed us that regs can impact dirty air. The follow distance that year was considered to be dramatically better and I'd say it was "good enough" (with the largest cars ever). But there have been very few reg improvements to keep that trend going, to fight all the development accomplished by the teams.
 
Id be cool if someone could come up with regs that incentivize inconsequential wakes. The team engineers are smarter than and dramatically outnumber the FIA engineers that make the regs. So let them fix the problem.

But I really doubt this idea is possible since it seems to conflict with the primary goal of all the team engineers - going faster.
 
^^^^
Doesn't "dirty" air create drag on the car that is creating the "dirty" air? I am thinking NASCAR where at Daytona two cars are faster than one because the car behind is breaking the drag "bubble" of the front car. If the air was "cleaner" coming off the back, then there would be less drag. I could be wrong though.

So, if my thinking is correct, if F1 cars figured out how to "clean up" the air that is coming off the car, then in theory, they would be faster.
 
Piastri obviously has the talent but does he have what it takes to keep his cool as a championship leader.
He’s a likeable character so spotlight will be on him even more from the media and also from Verstappen.
 
Blankpage said:
Piastri obviously has the talent but does he have what it takes to keep his cool as a championship leader.
He’s a likeable character so spotlight will be on him even more from the media and also from Verstappen.
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He certainly showed his grit in that first corner and didn't seem flustered near the end as Verstappen made some inroads.

Verstappen's pride wouldn't let him give the place back so he deserved not to win.

Horner should have overcome that pride and made the call but he failed as well.
 
Racinfrk said:
^^^^
Doesn't "dirty" air create drag on the car that is creating the "dirty" air? I am thinking NASCAR where at Daytona two cars are faster than one because the car behind is breaking the drag "bubble" of the front car. If the air was "cleaner" coming off the back, then there would be less drag. I could be wrong though.

So, if my thinking is correct, if F1 cars figured out how to "clean up" the air that is coming off the car, then in theory, they would be faster.
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The aero of cars is too complicated to say that much with certainty.

The concept you are thinking of is "pressure drag". A car moving through air creates a low pressure zone behind it that pull it backwards, ie drag. 2 NASCAR are often faster because the following car fills in the low pressure zone, decreasing the drag on the front car. But pressure drag is the result of really complicated air flow over the vehicle. I don't think we could say with certainty that less pressure drag would make an F1 car faster (in lap time) in all situations. Maybe it'd work in the simple case of reducing turbulence off the rear wing, since that's at the back of the car. But the teams seem to cause turbulence further up the car to increase downforce and/or decrease drag. Moving the air around the front tire using turbulence / vortex generators is the common talking point. Turbulent airflow is one of the most complicated things in aerodynamics. It's a 3D "structure" that changes over time... and changes in ways that are difficult to know because it's turbulent.

There are 2 other related reasons why drafting works so well for NASCAR and not for F1:

1. A following NASCAR doesn't lose so much downforce that it's impossible to follow. Maybe this is because NASCAR makes more of their downforce with over-body airflow. And maybe the leading car directs the airflow to the "normal" location for the following car, so the downforce is mostly still produced. But with F1, the front wing is the primary producer of front downforce and it's stuck there in the wake.

2. NASCAR and almost all other categories of car racing make less of their lap time with downforce. So any change in downforce has less impact on the lap time. This one will always be the biggest sticking point. If we want F1 cars this fast (especially with smaller engines and/or less fuel), it'll stay this way. The 2026 regs are trying to reduce this by reducing overall downforce while still keeping the speed with the new DRS. Who knows if it'll work and who knows how long it'll take the teams to ruin that.
 
GAJ said:
He certainly showed his grit in that first corner and didn't seem flustered near the end as Verstappen made some inroads.

Verstappen's pride wouldn't let him give the place back so he deserved not to win.

Horner should have overcome that pride and made the call but he failed as well.
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TheRace is saying that RB was confident Max was correct. They took new evidence to the stewards, a print of a screen capture of the broadcast, in an attempt to prove Max's opinion. So in this case, everyone at RB drank the kool-aid.
 
F1 needs more active aero. They are adding two modes of active aero for next year. Mode Z - full downforce. And Mode X - low downforce for any straight at any time. We also need Mode Y - mode Z is replaced with X% less downforce whenever you don't have a car following within 1sec. Tailor the amount of downforce reduction with how impactful dirty air is at a given track. It's bizarro-DRS. The cars following problem wouldn't exist. Combined with MOM (F1's new push to pass), drivers would pass "everywhere".

Unfortunately, I don't think F1 is committed to more than on/off for the new active aero. It would present a bunch of technical challenges and would be hard to police. But I'd bet they could do it.
 
yodaisgod said:
Should make all of them run one compound...super softs. Pit stops every 7-10 laps. LOL
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They are trying this at Monaco this year, with softer tires and 2 mandatory pit stops. I don't think it's going to work. There will be more position changes due to under/over cuts. But I doubt they'll be more passing. That's probably mostly the track's problem.

I still think a better idea is maximum laps per compound. It worked in Qatar (iirc) a few years ago when the tires would explode otherwise. It works for Indycar. Make the max lap count shorter than the tires would normally degrade so that the drivers can/should push for the whole stint. A consequence of that could be 2-3 stop at every track. And maybe we could ditch the "use 2 compounds" reg.
 
Racinfrk said:
It is the engineer's job to create as much dirty air as possible coming off the car without creating too much drag. The longer the rules stay the same, the more the engineer can figure out how to do this. IMHO, this is why it is harder to follow this year as it is the final year with the current rules.

I feel the FIA should come up with rules that would force the teams to clean up the air that comes off the car.
Click to expand...

They should mandate smoke colorizers in the bodywork so we can see the airflow all race long...Also, Max's penalty was lame AF. Typical FIA. Should have had to give position back.

A solution for the air issue is moving to an Indy Car program; time limit on push to pass, which for F1 would be time limit to DRS. Nix the DRS zones and instead, allow a certain time limit of DRS for the whole race. A driver can keep the DRS opened for the entire time limit if they wish, or hold it in reserve until the end of the race. DRS opened and battery charged should overcome dirty air.
 
It is weird that the rules don't allow the stewards to give the penalty of "give the position back" (iirc). Race control can recommend that someone give the spot back. But once the issue goes to the stewards, the minimum is a 5sec penalty. The timing of it all makes it very difficult, especially since the whole process can take many laps.
 
Yeah, that shit is ridicio. The Stewards should make decisions quickly and error on the side of penalty VS no penalty. This makes drivers be especially mindful.
 
What a whiny little bitch Max is!
When he makes that exact move but without being able to make the corner, then he is absolutely in the Right. But when somebody else executes the same thing against him while still making the corner, they are in the Wrong.

He's like a petulant little child.
 
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