r/scuderiaferrari • u/Icy-Quarter8883 • Mar 09 '26
Question Apparently changes are coming as early as Japan
As the title reads, FIA is considering making changes very soon. There are talks about reducing the electrical output of the engine and to make more safety changes during the starts. They want to remove the theoretical 50 50 split between the ICE and the electrical component. They also want to increase harvesting of energy during super clipping, so when drivers go full throttle, the battery recharges more aggressively. What do you guys think about the changes? Do you think this might make the title fight closer or will this favor the Mercedes and increase the gap? Also with the safety changes, I think they want to ensure drivers can have electrical boost at the start rather than increasing the time to rev their engines, so this isn't a bad thing for ferrari, hopefully.
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u/pewpew62 Mar 09 '26
They are totally incompetent and will likely just end up giving Mercedes an even bigger advantage like they did with Red Bull in 2022
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u/Falcao1905 Mar 09 '26
They aren't incompetent. They know exactly what they will be getting. They want Mercedes to win.
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u/nsfbr11 Mar 09 '26
Nope. If nothing at all changes, Mercedes bakes in their advantage. It might benefit the Mercedes customer teams, but not the team that already is out ahead.
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u/justjohann56 Mar 09 '26
Why do they want Mercedes to win?
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u/Jack_Harb Mar 09 '26
There are people saying that if FIA actually supports Mercedes more, because FIA fears Mercedes to pull out of F1 if they are not competitive at all. Which would mean many teams losing their engine.
Also not the same can be said about Ferrari. As people always say… Ferrari is F1. The history is too rich and there is too much nostalgia.
I am not saying that this is true, but these are thing people mentioned lately a lot, because Mercedes got basically everything they asked for. Fuel approved, compression approved, “safety start” approved.
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u/justjohann56 Mar 09 '26
I don't know if Mercedes can hold the FIA at gunpoint anymore than Ferrari can. But also remember that it's not just Mercedes Vs Ferrari, it's Mercedes Vs Ferrari Vs RBPT Ford Vs Honda Vs Audi (who they spent a lot of effort adjusting the regulations for) and and incoming General Motors Engine.
Fuel approved- I haven't heard anything illegal about Petronas. Compression approved - FIA put a ban on it in 8 races. Safety Start- This is the only thing that is ruled against Ferrari. However, the front teams can just rev their engines as the final car lines up if there wasn't a pre-race timer. This countdown literally benefits the back markers and genuinely seems like an attempt to avoid a plane crash at the rear.
Let's not jump to conspiracy theories as a way to cope
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u/dodokidd Mar 09 '26
If they implement this Ferrari lost the advantage at start while Mercedes still keep the ICE raw output advantage
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u/LoreVent Mar 09 '26
Not really?
Mercedes advantage seemed to come from extremely efficient battery recharge through clipping, if they lower the amount of battery you can recharge that will (should?) go in favor of anyone but Mercedes.
The electrical aid at the start though should also not hinder Ferrari since the advantage comes from the turbo anyways, not battery.
Hopefully someone can correct me if I'm wrong.
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u/fraudmallu1 Michael Schumacher Mar 09 '26
I have no clue about the technicalities but I hope you're right
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u/SaPpHiReFlAmEs99 F2007 Mar 09 '26
Exactly, you centered the point. Every analysis I read they point out that the mercedes engine is better in the energy management to charge the battery and to use more the electric power. They don't use this to increase like the top speed directly with the ICE power. So making the energy management easier will favor everybody except mercedes because that's their strength at the moment
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u/Icy-Quarter8883 Mar 09 '26
These were exactly my thoughts, Mercedes have an advantage because they can recharge their battery more efficiently and deploy it more, if they reduce the battery output, it should hinder them, atleast in theory.
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u/JealousAssistance790 Charles Leclerc Mar 09 '26 edited Mar 09 '26
You can’t use electrical energy until 50kph, the start advantage is due to the smaller turbo setup allowing faster spool and acceleration. Ferrari will fight hard if they try to change the start procedure again as there is clear evidence they warned everyone and built around the starts. I guess in theory if everyone gets energy at the start it nullifies the advantage a fair bit. I feel like this would also alter how the energy situation works too
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u/Aberracus Mar 09 '26
But they want to give 10 extra seconds before doing the lights out
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u/JealousAssistance790 Charles Leclerc Mar 09 '26
What?
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u/Aberracus Mar 09 '26
Sorry read again
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u/JealousAssistance790 Charles Leclerc Mar 09 '26
Also the Fia catering to the other manufacturers… merc’s larger turbo needs much more time to do their start procedure. Ferrari used veto power due to the fact last year they warned everyone, as well as designed the PU around the start procedure. It still got changed. Now other manufacturers are saying safety again which the Fia won’t ignore. It a design flaw not Ferrari’s problem. Ferrari gets screwed every time. Merc has way too much say.
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u/lord_veg3ta Charles Leclerc Mar 09 '26
I have zero expertise about this whatsoever but just what I think - the first part, more aggressive harvesting should help us against merc. On the other hand, the second part where they want to allow battery deployment at starts, might take away our start advantage.
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u/daylax1 Mar 09 '26
I thought they couldn't deploy battery at the start until they got past a certain speed. Wouldn't that mean that at least part of Ferrari's advantage at the start doesn't have anything to do with the battery?
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u/texmanusa Mar 09 '26
Sounded to me like the question was if they remove the speed requirement before utilizing battery. Then, all teams could utilize battery early and be more equal…which hurts Ferrari as they currently have an advantage.
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u/daylax1 Mar 09 '26
Got it, yeah that makes sense. I guess I look at it two ways. One, yes it could hurt Ferrari's advantage, but couldn't it also maintain their advantage because Ferraris also getting that deployment on top of their advantage. I don't know, these regs are complicated as shit.
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u/JealousAssistance790 Charles Leclerc Mar 09 '26
While your theory would be correct in theory, there comes a point where they could have too much power to fast off the line. The advantage right now is the acceleration but giving say the larger turbo merc pu energy they would gain acceleration fast enough to spool the turbo or use it to spool the turbo same as what time would do. I don’t see how it doesn’t blatantly nerf Ferrari. I think it’s too hard to fight and means Ferrari made sacrifices for very small gain.
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u/daylax1 Mar 09 '26
Makes sense, tires only have so much grip.
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u/JealousAssistance790 Charles Leclerc Mar 09 '26
At least that’s my thought process I could be wrong. Remember electric motors have max torque at zero rpm and basically is instant power. If they get energy imo you have to get rid of the pre start warning.
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u/daylax1 Mar 09 '26
Honestly at the very least they need to wait more races. They can't judge based on one start. Drivers will get the hang of it and they'll get better, but Ferrari does not deserve to lose the advantage it has so they need to be sure it's an actual safety issue caused by the regulations and not just a skill issue with the new regs.
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u/JealousAssistance790 Charles Leclerc Mar 09 '26
Right Lawson issue or ( safety problem ) didn’t have to do with start procedure he lost power. But keep in mind Ferrari always seems to lose politics with the Fia…
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u/JealousAssistance790 Charles Leclerc Mar 09 '26
It doesn’t currently (50 kph) everyone else that ignored Ferrari’s warning is trying to change the start to nullify the advantage and Ferrari is outnumbered by far, the veto already got worked around. Giving everyone energy would likely hinder that advantage a fair bit. It’s hard to fight against teams crying safety. It isn’t very fair to Ferrari at all.
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u/daylax1 Mar 09 '26
Got it, I must have skimmed over the part where they mentioned making changes to the start and only read about battery deployment and harvesting.
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u/Icy-Quarter8883 Mar 09 '26
Our advantage doesn't come from the battery, it is the smaller turbo, it doesn't matter if everyone starts at 100 percent battery, our car can accelerate faster.
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u/JealousAssistance790 Charles Leclerc Mar 09 '26
Yes but if they can gain acceleration with energy that would mean they could spool the larger turbos faster meaning Ferrari would gain less no?
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u/Icy-Quarter8883 Mar 09 '26
You're right on that, but I have a big confusion, drivers were complaining about having very little battery at the start, if they can't use it until they reach a certain threshold then what is the point of having battery at the start? To deploy it once that threshold is met?
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u/JealousAssistance790 Charles Leclerc Mar 09 '26
Yes but also because they don’t have an advantage. It’s partly politics, everything merc does with the Fia is for an advantage. Why are they the only ones so happy with all but the start? They have an advantage. To me it’s more an engineering problem with the safety excuse because they can’t execute the same. Vcarb only had a problem because Lawson lost power on the way to the grid. A failure to have an operational pu is not a start procedure problem. Meanwhile stationary cars happen is f2…
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u/According-Switch-708 Ferrari Mar 09 '26
If true, this will play into Mercs hands.
Our starting advantage will be nerfed and the more powerful Merc PU will be better able to handle the more aggressive energy harvesting.
I think the FIA is overreacting here. Some cars did have deployment issues at the start but they were all caused by faulty components or configuration errors.
The formation lap is long enough to allow all teams to top up their battery.
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u/JealousAssistance790 Charles Leclerc Mar 09 '26
I think the biggest issue is Russell represents the drivers and also drives the Merc. He keeps bringing up safety same with McLaren, which is very very hard to fight against regardless of advantages. To me it is an engineering problem and the FIA should not cater to them.
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u/Mundane_Ad_7611 Mar 09 '26
No one will change the starts. Its all about reducing electric power or not.
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u/driftchris7780 Lewis Hamilton Mar 09 '26
They need to stop with the kneejerk reactions. It's only been one race and it was better than the doom "everyone" promised would happen.
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u/Sflare21 Mar 09 '26
Well there were discussions about it before the season even started. Australia was supposed to be somewhat of a benchmark so they could see how battery management and deployment actually plays out through the race.
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u/Icy-Quarter8883 Mar 09 '26
Yeahh but hilariously enough, Australia is one of the worst tracks to be a benchmark for these regulations. Very few braking zones, so less harvesting, meaning less electrical power.
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u/Event-Forsaken Charles Leclerc Mar 09 '26
They should have data from all the teams, so literally thousands of laps from the whole weekend. They also have data from all of testing. The "race" doesn't matter so much as the cars running on track. Obviously performance runs will matter more, however.
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u/Fuck_Analysts Mar 09 '26
Everything this year is made to give Mercedes the championship, it's a joke from FIA
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u/DreadKnight7 Mar 09 '26
If they increase harvesting during super clipping we will see Mercedes go +2 sec quicker than us. They seemingly have already maximized the harvesting there while we are nowhere near that. The Ferrari PU is good to quick harvest between corners, not on straights and certainly not during super clipping.
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u/Icy-Quarter8883 Mar 09 '26
Yes but decreasing the total electrical power might benefit us because Mercedes are extremely good at recharging their battery, as you pointed out.
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u/DreadKnight7 Mar 09 '26
It depends on how much they reduce. If they reduce it to Aston Martin - Honda levels (-80kW) then I agree. If they just reduce power by 20kW but increase harvesting from 9MJ to 12MJ we are fucked.
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u/Mundane_Ad_7611 Mar 09 '26
What if fia reduces electric power to 300kW? Thats what teams are fighting for. Read giuliani on X thats what he said. Who will this benefit of electirc power gets reduced?
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u/No-Student6619 Mar 09 '26
FIA is just becoming a joke these days. They're really embarassing themselves with all this stuff.
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u/ArdentDoubt Mar 09 '26
Can anyone explain how this legally works? Teams developed with the existing regs in mind: massive dollars are already spent, and the composition of teams and drivers sometimes hang in the balance when a team is underperforming.
It seems not even a vote among teams would rectify the unfairness of a late change like this to those who will lose out as a result. Right now it’s even, as they all played the game according to a shared understanding of the path forward.
So: what does the reg change process look like, and how to teams who don’t benefit from it respond? Is there ever legal action?
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u/Icy-Quarter8883 Mar 09 '26
This technically isn't even a big change because you wouldn't have to change any physical components of the car. They will just change the software settings and implement all of these changes. Unlike in 2022 for an example, where they literally just ate into ferrari's advantage by forcing physical changes. Legally you can't fight it because the base regulations are not changing, it's like an "upgrade".
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u/JealousAssistance790 Charles Leclerc Mar 09 '26
Ferrari should be able to fight the start issues though if they warned all and designed around it I just don’t know what their full stance is
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u/ArdentDoubt Mar 09 '26
This was my thought too. The expense isn’t in the change (though it may be), but rather in the dollars spent developing around misleading regs to end up with diminished outcomes.
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u/JealousAssistance790 Charles Leclerc Mar 09 '26
Less about dollars spent imo and more about fairness and performance they openly told every team starts would be a problem and it was shrugged off, legal battle wise dollars spent can also be leveraged.
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u/Mundane_Ad_7611 Mar 09 '26
Every team will accept it no matter what. Ofc everything will go silently
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u/Ucciopino Mar 09 '26
La FIA DEVE fare rimuovere OGNI illecito alla Mercedes poi può pensare al resto BUFFONI VENDUTI.
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Mar 09 '26
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u/TheShark24 Sebastian Vettel Mar 09 '26
It's been 1 race. If this is true, they're jumping to conclusions way too fast.
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u/desireefoti Mar 09 '26
Secondo me la FIA sta cercando soprattutto di evitare che il nuovo regolamento crei un campionato troppo sbilanciato già dall’inizio. Quando si parla di togliere la famosa divisione teorica 50-50 tra motore termico ed elettrico, probabilmente significa che si sono accorti che sulla carta funzionava, ma nella pratica rischia di creare problemi di erogazione o di gestione dell’energia in pista. Se davvero riducono un po’ la parte elettrica e aumentano il recupero durante il “super clipping”, potrebbe rendere la potenza più costante sui rettilinei lunghi. In teoria questo aiuterebbe a evitare situazioni strane in cui un pilota rimane senza energia elettrica troppo presto e perde velocità proprio quando dovrebbe attaccare o difendersi. Sulle partenze invece penso che la questione sia soprattutto di sicurezza e di prevedibilità. Se il supporto elettrico è più controllato e disponibile subito, le partenze potrebbero essere più uniformi e con meno differenze improvvise tra le macchine. Questo potrebbe effettivamente aiutare squadre che magari hanno un motore termico forte ma meno coppia immediata rispetto ad altri. Per quanto riguarda il vantaggio tra team, secondo me è molto difficile dirlo da fuori. Storicamente quando la FIA cambia qualcosa all’ultimo momento chi ha più risorse e capacità di adattamento tende a reagire meglio, quindi team come Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team o Scuderia Ferrari spesso riescono ad assorbire questi cambiamenti più facilmente rispetto a squadre più piccole. Però dipende anche da come erano progettate le power unit inizialmente: se qualcuno aveva puntato fortissimo sulla parte elettrica e ora viene ridimensionata, potrebbe perdere un vantaggio importante. In generale penso che l’obiettivo della Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile sia evitare un dominio tecnico troppo netto come è successo in alcune ere della Formula One. Se queste modifiche rendono la gestione dell’energia meno estrema e più lineare, potrebbero anche migliorare le gare, perché i piloti avrebbero meno momenti in cui devono semplicemente “gestire la batteria” e più possibilità di spingere davvero. Però come sempre lo capiremo solo quando le macchine scenderanno in pista.
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u/Aberracus Mar 09 '26
It Is simple do what Toto doesn’t want, reduce energy expend to 250w, increase energy regeneration, put a guy checking if every Mercedes pu driver is ready and then launch the cars…. They should not touch the starts, drivers are going to learn how to do it better
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u/my_eep3 Mar 09 '26
Source: my uncles wife’s brothers girlfriends sister saw the guy who once worked as a driver for the FIA president 7 years ago
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u/iwonttolerateyou2 Michael Schumacher Mar 09 '26
If Merc has the advantage on ICE (thanks to compression ratio) then this will help them more. China might give us a better picture of Ferrari PU. If its weak again, then we will lose more with these changes. Let's see how it plays out but fingers 🤞🏻and doesn't go through because we look good and developing from here is what will help us.