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The 2026 cars have to use 30 kgs of fuel only to generate electric power, according to the latest calculations. Wheelbase set to be shortened by 30 cm, new gearbox with only 6 instead of 8 gears. More about the 2026 regs in our AMuS story (in German): https://www.auto-motor-und-sport.de/formel-1/f1-reglement-2026-details-motor-technik-radstand-getriebe/
It being roughly a foot shorter isn’t a massive size difference on these boats I feel. Gearbox changes are interesting, I wonder if that will reduce speed in long straights like Mexico or if it will result in slower acceleration in gears 3/4. I don’t know enough about motive force generation to even weigh an opinion on the fuel comment
I’ll let the engineers set the rules though and see how the racing goes, it’s too early and my brain is barely functioning after dealing with on-call causing me to have 3 hours of sleep in the last 48 hours…
I guess the move to 6-speed comes from the extra torque the electric motors provide making 8 a bit unnecessary.
30cm shorter wheelbase is roughly a 10% decrease I think. It would be good if weight comes down quite a bit too.
8.3% to be precise. Much better than nothing, but I'd like to see a more significant jump if possible. Even with this decrease it will still be 30cm longer than the 2000 cars.
Does that even bring them back to the pre-Hybrid V6 era?
I don’t believe so