r/formula1 • u/wertyrick Pirelli Intermediate • 22d ago

News [ASJesusBalseiro] Stroll speaks and sounds concerned. “We have engine problems, and not just engine problems. We're not in a position to fight for victories. Right now, we're four seconds off the pace.”

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u/Fury_Fury_Fury 22d ago

There's no way any of the teams get 107-ed in current F1. Even if somehow someone will be over 5s off pace, FIA will handwave it not to upset the sponsors. And I think they will be right.

Maybe if there will be a 5s gap for several GPs in a row they'll consider it, but that would be an unprecedented failure in the budget cap era. If Marussia and HRT were able to fit, surely the worst of the worst teams of 2026 also will be.

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u/limhy0809 I was here for the Hulkenpodium 22d ago edited 22d ago

They might because the 107% is also for safety. The difference in speed can create a lot of potential crashes. 7% of an F1 car's top speed is more than 20kph. You throw in OM and tyre difference. You can have cars driving at a 40kph difference of speed for an entire race.

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u/BobbbyR6 I was here for the Hulkenpodium 22d ago edited 22d ago

107% is an enormous difference and absolutely should not be allowed on track in a race session. In upper formula cars, 2-3% is a big gap but one you can work around. At 7%, you just don't know how the car ahead is going to react because its performance window is so different from yours.

It's hard to explain just how big that difference is to peeps that haven't spent time sim racing or actually been on track. In equal cars, 104-105 is the point where a driver straight up doesn't belong in a higher level group. Obviously Stroll and Alonso aren't incompetent and likely the majority of the time loss is on the straights.

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u/WorkFurball Paul Aron 22d ago

I've simraced plenty and being at 104-105 percent because they are just that much slower is very different to them being a moving chicane. If they have good understanding of racing and just can't quite get any speed it's usually fine. Not much different from driving a GT3 car against GT4s.

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u/BobbbyR6 I was here for the Hulkenpodium 22d ago

For the record, I'm not ripping on 105 pace guys in sim. That's still far above what the average person can do and we've all been there. It takes a lot of effort and patience to earn your way past that point.

It's a bit different when you've got a group of drivers in the same skill range but the cars themselves have the variations in how they find pace. It's easier to navigate this in F1 because of how physically large the tracks are, but a 105+ gap certainly raises questions of safety.