Motorsports 2026

[Deutsche Gopher Fan]

Bahrain and Saudi Arabia are officially cancelled. No replacements.

Here's an interesting thought I read elsewhere. Mercedes knows they need to rack up a ton of points before everyone else starts catching them in development especially before the new engine compression test goes into affect in June. Well, they just lost two races while the going is good to help accumulate those points.

If Mercedes and/or Russell lose the championship by a few points, these two cancellations could be the difference.

 

[Kepler]

Bahrain and Saudi Arabia are officially cancelled. No replacements

"Postponed," IINM. With the option of sliding them in later. Assuming Dump's war ends by October.

Edit: I see they have updated their language and they are indeed canceled for 2026. Huh. GCC loses a few hundred million $ more.

 

[aparch]

Bahrain and Saudi Arabia are officially cancelled. No replacements.

Here's an interesting thought I read elsewhere. Mercedes knows they need to rack up a ton of points before everyone else starts catching them in development especially before the new engine compression test goes into affect in June. Well, they just lost two races while the going is good to help accumulate those points.

If Mercedes and/or Russell lose the championship by a few points, these two cancellations could be the difference.

I think it was Reddit where I saw it mentioned that there are three "upgrade" windows teams have, and there was speculation that Mercedes was sandbagging to prevent the bonus upgrade from happening. If teams are over 2% of the leader's power output, they get an upgrade to their car without penalty. Over 4% off the leader and they get two upgrades.

 

[Kepler]

If I am reading this right, Antonelli, Bearman, Lawson, Hadjar, and Colapinto combined for 46 points at the CGP. That's gotta be a rookie record, right?

 

[MichVandal]

Nice to see Kimi get his first win, and finally Lewis gets a real podium for Ferrari.

 

[MichVandal]

View attachment 2075

And he has a lot of real billionaire buddies in f1. Sucks for them.

 

[MichVandal]

Shocking news- max complained about that race not being real racing. It looked like the race was won by the driver who finished in the least time. And that the order was pretty much in order of which car is fastest. Like racing has mostly been.

Makes me want to see the rules extended.

 

[aparch]

I woke up and saw the Cadillacs had a decent showing, only finishing one lap down.

Then I saw four cars didn't even make the start. Now I gotta find a race replay.

 

[state of hockey]

I swear I’m not trying to be a Max defender, to prove it I’ll state him saying it isn’t racing is stupid. Because obviously, trying to complete a set distance faster than everyone else *is* racing.

He (and I, apparently) don’t like how a driver has to go about it. He claims he’d complain even if he was winning, but Red Bull is so in the weeds we might not ever know.

He should learn a lesson Bob Motzko did years ago. No one wants to hear your complaints given the position you’re in. He should also probably retire and move on the endurance stuff he’s been getting more into, he’s got the money.

 

[aparch]

Oh my God, I picked a great time to start following F1 much closer. Last week had the Leclerc audio where he said driving the car on push to pass felt like a mushroom boost in Mario Kart.

Now we have this gem:

 

[Spartanforlife4]

I will once again reiterate that the drivers may hate the cars, but this is great entertainment. There is no way that Ferrari and Russell fight happens last year. Cars couldn’t follow that close for that long and as soon as a car did pass the fight was over with the passing car speeding off. The interesting thing was it appeared to be the defensive car in Leclerc who had the most tire degradation rather than Hamilton or Russell following close, but that drop off from Leclerc may have been due to his moment that let Hamilton take over for good.

 

[MichVandal]

Can’t wait to see a full race, but it’s fun to see them race side by side in corners like that. And now with the charging, there is real variability in the braking zones.

 

[MichVandal]

F1 wins an Oscar!

Maybe that’s for a different thread.

 

[Russell Jaslow]

"Postponed," IINM. With the option of sliding them in later. Assuming Dump's war ends by October.

Edit: I see they have updated their language and they are indeed canceled for 2026. Huh. GCC loses a few hundred million $ more.

There's no way they could have fitted those races in elsewhere with how tight the calendar is and the shipping it would necessitate that far away. And remember, the summer break is mandated in the Concord Agreement, so that's untouchable.

They don't lose as much as one thinks. The TV contracts have a minimum of I think 22 races. So, they still meet that without having to provide refunds. Yes, they lose two of the larger sanctioning fees on the calendar, but losing the TV money would have been worse.

 

[Spartanforlife4]

I had read speculation they might add a doubleheader to Japan, but the more I think about that, that’s a lot of volunteers, tickets, vendors, etc to plan short notice for an event that’s never on short notice. It’s not like a makeup game for baseball or rescheduling a hockey game where the stadium’s already in use another 180 days a year.

 

[Russell Jaslow]

I think it was Reddit where I saw it mentioned that there are three "upgrade" windows teams have, and there was speculation that Mercedes was sandbagging to prevent the bonus upgrade from happening. If teams are over 2% of the leader's power output, they get an upgrade to their car without penalty. Over 4% off the leader and they get two upgrades.

Correct. There are three opportunities. I think there are three thresholds, 2%, 4%, and 6%, each providing the lesser teams different opportunities. The first one does not alleviate the cost cap, but the second one does.

There are three (maybe that's where I'm getting the three from if I'm mistaken above) times this can kick in. Interestingly, the first one is after the first six races. Now that two of them are cancelled, I wonder how that's going to work. It does state races 1-6. I guess it now depends how you count 1-6...

 

[Russell Jaslow]

I had read speculation they might add a doubleheader to Japan, but the more I think about that, that’s a lot of volunteers, tickets, vendors, etc to plan short notice for an event that’s never on short notice. It’s not like a makeup game for baseball or rescheduling a hockey game where the stadium’s already in use another 180 days a year.

That was the original speculation from last week. The teams were against it.

 

[Jimjamesak]

That was the original speculation from last week. The teams were against it.

Probably prefer the month off to get some development time on the cars.

 

[Drew S.]

Could they add COTA around the Miami race?

I really feel bad for David Malukas. It sucks that nascar/Kaulig couldn’t punish Dye without amplifying the incident.

 

[MichVandal]

I don’t think so- and losing 2 races isn’t that big of a deal.