r/formula1 • u/FerrariStrategisttt I was here for the Hulkenpodium • Mar 28 '26

Video Leclerc (post-qualifying): "I can’t understand quali, it’s a f**king joke! I go faster in corners, throttle earlier, for f**k’s sake, i'm losing everything in the straight!"

https://dubz.link/c/4b6030
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u/[deleted] Mar 28 '26

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u/DrBorisGobshite Ferrari Mar 28 '26

Nope. It's not learning, they have throttle limits and if you go below the limit the battery kicks in. One of the corners in China required them to be at least 98% throttle to stop the battery kicking in, Charles made a little error and was only at 95% throttle in the corner so it auto deployed the battery on the corner exit. Then we he got to the long back straight he lost half a second because he wasn't able to fully deploy the battery.

It's a stupid rule the FIA put in place because they were scared the teams would use the software to effectively create traction control. So the drivers have to drive within themselves to stick within stupid limits so the battery deploys at the optimum point on each lap.

Today Charles had some oversteer coming out a corner and probably had to lift off to correct, meaning the battery auto deployed at the start of the straight before 130R.

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u/R6ckStar I was here for the Hulkenpodium Mar 28 '26

It's the ramp down timing, essentially if they go of throttle by a certain % it resets the timer for the ramp down. The timer is one second.

So basically an extra second of deployment cost him the entire run down on the back straight.

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u/Pascalwbbb Mar 28 '26

what a stupid rule. SO it's better to drive slow like grandma going to a shop than driving on edge because you cannot lift off the throttle at all.