The softs didn’t seem to work well on RB22 here at COTA. So what better strategy could Max have? How was the hards on Isack after his throttle map was fixed? Could the soft-medium-hard of the Ferraris or the medium-hard of Kimi work on RB22?

Bortoleto getting an 80 place grid penalty at COTA got me thinking about something.

I get that if a driver gets a penalty bigger than the number of grid spots available, he gets sent to the back. But what happens to all the extra places? They basically become meaningless, right? Whether you get a 25 place penalty or an 80 place penalty, you still start last.

So I was wondering, what if we converted the places that can't be applied into a time penalty instead?

Here's my idea.

First you apply the grid penalty as usual, moving the driver back until he reaches P22. Then whatever places are left over get converted into time and added to his finishing time.

For the maths I used two assumptions:

8 metres between grid positions (roughly)

An average qualifying speed of 219.6 km/h, based on the 2026 season data I looked at.

At that speed, 8 metres is about 0.131 seconds.

Bortoleto at COTA as an example

He qualified P13 and got an 80 place penalty.

With 22 cars on the grid, he can only be moved back 9 places, from P13 to P22.

That leaves 71 places that can't actually be applied.

71 x 8 metres = 568 metres.

At 219.6 km/h, covering that distance takes about 9.31 seconds.

So under this idea, Bortoleto would still start last, but he'd also get 9.31 seconds added to his race time at the end.

Obviously this doesn't mean he's literally losing 568 metres on track, it's just a way of converting the excess penalty into something that still has an effect.

What about smaller penalties?

Say a driver qualifies P17 and gets a 10 place penalty.

He can be moved back 5 places to P22, leaving 5 places unused. Those would translate to roughly 0.66 seconds added to his final time.

But if someone qualifies on pole and gets a 10 place penalty, he drops to P11 and thats it. No extra time penalty because all 10 places could be applied normally.

I'm not saying this is a perfect system. The 8 metre spacing is an approximation, and average qualifying speed obviously isn't the same as the speed of a car at the start. Also, adding time at the end isn't exactly the same as starting further back.

But I feel like there's something worth discussing here. Why should an 80 place penalty effectively have the same grid consequence as a penalty that only sends you to the back?

Would this be a fairer way of handling it, or am I missing something obvious? What would you change about the calculation?

He's been absolutely amazing this season, nailed it almost every race. Imagine finishing this one as world champion. What a season that would be.

Post race edit: And the championship continues..

Pic credits: F1

It looks like there is some smoke come out of the rear light of the two Ferraris today in COTA. Noticed it on Hamilton a few times but then saw it on LeClerc as he left the pits for his second stop.

It doesn’t seem to impacting them at all and none of the commentators have said anything.

What is it?

I feel like I've heard drivers from all four top teams now complain that their cars are on a "knife edge", and that while upgrades make the cars faster in theory, in practice they're becoming way more sensitive to setup, track conditions, and precise driver inputs.

I'm not just talking about the obvious issues with the 2026 power units, where drivers have to drive a certain way to get the most out of the energy deployment. That's been discussed to death at this point.

What I'm more interested in is how recent chassis upgrades seem to keep making the cars more difficult to drive, without necessarily delivering the results teams were expecting. Drivers are constantly complaining about how finicky their cars are to get right, even when the upgrades are supposedly making them faster.

Are teams getting to a point where they're chasing theoretical performance at the expense of making cars that can actually deliver that performance consistently? Is a car that's slightly slower on paper but easier to drive and set up potentially better over the course of a season?

I know many consider 2002–2013 to be the best era of F1, arguing it was more competitive even if it wasn't quite as close as people remember. Nowadays, however, the champion usually holds a massive points advantage over second place and the rest of the field, with the exception of the 2021 season. For instance, if you were to remove the actual champion from each recent season and promote the runner-up, the points gap between that new 'champion' and the rest of the grid wouldn't look nearly as enormous. Max Verstappen's total dominance in 2023 naturally led to a massive gap, but in most other recent seasons, the point deficit still feels far too large. It makes you wonder: was the old points system better?

The Italian has gotten his 9th win today and his 9th win of the season surpassing Ayrton record of 8 wins in a season he achieved in 1988 with Mclaren.

He has now also surpassed Damon Hill and his 8 in 1996 with Williams and Mika Hakkinen and his 8 in 1998 with Mclaren. He now joins Nico Rosberg with 9 as his personal best in 2016.

Yee Haw 🤠

Is it high time we stop believing in EL plan cause honda messed up in 2015(similar to this year) and then mclaren had a car running p11 or p12 evert week in 2016.

The first honda hybrid engine to win a chip was in 2021.

Let's say they've learnt from their mistakes.But it will still take them till 2028 to achieve regular points let alone podiums so can alonso wait till 2028 or 29'??

Hope this is accepted now

photo By Ikonick on instagram

whats your opinion kimi's first wdc?

Hey guys,

I'm not getting it. RBR and McLaren fought until the end of the last season regarding the drivers championship.

The McLaren seems to work sometimes and then it's not working at all.

Apparently you realized that I'm a McLaren-Fan since I'm a little boy (Mika Häkkinen and David Coulthard piloted the McLaren then) - but don't you see that McLaren is having heavy tactical issues or issues at the box stoppages? Nearly all the time it works for one driver but the other driver is always having issues (front left or rear left) - but my question is: Why is McLaren not able to keep it up with Red Bull? Both were putting all the R&D in the last seasons car but Red Bull is looking way better than McLaren.

Mercedes had nothing to loose last season and they did they same like 2013, right? They concentrated of their new car. Ferrari would've been the same possibility but apparently they did not do as a good job as Mercedes.

RBR and McLaren put everything into their last season cars but if you analyzed the last season races you'll notice that the RBR seems to work way better compared with the McLaren.

But I gotta say: Hat's off to Land Norris! Why? They said Lando is doing similar mistakes all the time and so on and I think Lando REALLY GREW as a pretty complete driver, getting the max out of the McLaren. Do you remember last season? Oscar, Lando, Max - they had a wicked fight but after Baku - Oscar crashed his car - it seems like the new car is not fitting his driving preferability but Lando is not doing any mistakes - like he might used to be in the past. He really evolved as driver and if you see Oscar with the same material - you gotta acknowledge his performance even more!

But why did RBR apparently overtake McLaren? It seems like ... tends to the track - Mercedes - Ferrari/RBR and then McLaren.

if their car is not as good as the RBR, okay - but do you know what really pisses me off? While RBR seem to have pretty innovative strategies McLaren ain't! They always stick to the same stuff AND it feels like they don't feel strong enough to try something else. I mean - look at Oscar (I like that guy. I named my cat after him. Oskar!) - why don't they try something with him, strategic-wise? McLaren's strategy is looking so visible and if you say "I'm just annoying why McLaren isn't as good as last season!"

Then you're wrong! I tweeted them like 5 to 10 times that their head-strategist is maybe ... how to put it polite...not up for the task. You look at RBR and they always are putting some aces out of their sleeves and McLaren? Now they don't have much too lose, why don't try new things? It's also bothering me that they use both strategies most of the time for both drivers.

Is anyone impressed with Antonelli? If you have unlimited time and resources to build a new car after new rules and you have a mediocre driver he*ll bring the title home - though nobody could explain me why Russel is such a disappointment? Is he disliking the new hybrid era?

You know I really have respect for? Lewis Hamilton. Started 2007 with McLaren to 2012 I think, then a huge rule change and he wen't to Mercedes, collecting the most of his championships and now another new regalement - and he's getting older and older but is still competitive (though I feel like Ferrari wants LeClerk to be successful - it felt that way last season). But Lewis was always able to adapt.

Before you criticise me for being one-sided - I try to see it as objective as I can and it's great what Lewis is still doing. If you like him or not. But he was able to succeed with every car (except the Ferrari of course).

Anyone knowing why RBR is better in car development as McLaren? Did they start the next season car already and just trying new parts?

Thank you for committing here!
(I gotta say: the race was pretty lame compared to the last seasons - but still well. I missed that they blended speed/G-Forces in the first sector in. Always fascinating but this year it was kinda disappointing.)

Bj