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Fast cars, lightning reflexes, and the unknown future-- this is Blind Corners. News and chatting about the latest topics around the Formula 1 World Championship. Hosted by Bryce Castillo. Putting the 'theory' in critical racing theory since 2023.
[This transcript has been generated.]
[0:00] Here's all the F1 news that matters this Monaco Grand Prix.
[0:05] So as F1 at large is trying to make corrections to the engine formula for next year, an unexpected compromise has appeared in the form of shortening some of the race lengths for 2027. And how did we get here? So in the move to increase internal combustion engine power.
[0:22] The suggestion was to increase the fuel flow rate that basically lets the engines use more fuel to get more power the problem that that creates is that you need more fuel to cover the same race distance and a lot of the teams are really concerned about that because if you put a larger fuel tank in these cars then you need to redesign the chassis you have to redesign a lot of stuff and that costs a lot of money it's not that the teams can't do it it's just it takes a lot of money and we're in a cost cap era where if the FIA doesn't prescribe how much money you can spend then you're kind of working against yourself and so the compromise here is increase the fuel flow rate but reduce the length of races at certain tracks by one to two laps as well as reducing some of the laps pre-race to get the cars to the because there are a lot of like formality laps that go on that aren't even on tv and i want to say it was near the end of last season that f1 was even kind of flirting with the idea of a shorter grand prix So this ultimately could do like double duty, right? Like as act as a compromise for the engines, but then also kind of test the waters and see if people are people even going to notice if the Spanish Grand Prix is a lap or two shorter.
[1:36] But people even know, I guess, on some places like Spa, where the track is really, really long, one or two laps is a pretty significant amount of distance. But i think ultimately nobody is happy with the idea of like making the races shorter i don't think there's anybody who nobody's on paper like yeah let's you know what less race less less races that's what we need is less race so hopefully this is a temporary arrangement and i think because it's a compromise that nobody's going to like probably end up doing it but the larger changes.
[2:09] It's still completely in play and may not even happen to the point where maybe Max Verstappen will quit because they can't push these changes along.
[2:18] So before Canada, the stakeholders broadly agreed that they would like to change the 2027 formula to more of a 60-40 split versus the 50-50 split that they've got right now. The unanimity that they had is gone. Mercedes and Red Bull, for their part, are a-okay with making changes to the 2027 engine. Audi, Ferrari, Cadillac strongly disapprove, and Honda is still undecided. On the Audi side, there's, you know, a new power unit manufacturer, and so they are just concerned that they are not actually able to make the technical changes to the engine. And also, they don't want to spend the estimated $10 million it would be to redesign the engines for next year. Ferrari and Cadillac, on the other hand, their issue is more with the current system where we have Aduo. This is the new development catch-up system that lets any of the struggling 2026 engine makers upgrade their engine in season as a way of catching up and evening the playing fields between the engine makers. And so Ferrari think that if you open up the regulations at the end of this year for everyone to update their engines.
[3:32] That Aduo will basically be useless and it will still give Mercedes basically a chance to make their dominant engine even more dominant and unchecked. And so it sounds like Ferrari and Cadillac, who are kind of on board with Ferrari.
[3:49] Are going to ultimately be against this. In fact, the FIA didn't even hold a vote yet to make these engine changes because they don't have the votes. And so the FIA are focusing their attention more on Audi and Honda. Honda seems like they could go either way. But if they can convince Audi, then there would be a super majority needed to push forward changes for 2027. And Ferrari and Cadillac wouldn't be happy with it getting forced through, but that might be a better solution than like Max Verstappen leaving the sport. I mean, Max has openly been threatening to leave Formula One for this whole season.
[4:26] And last season, he's been talking, he doesn't like it. He doesn't like the way the cars are. He doesn't like the battery power. And it was only when that 60-40 split was talked about where Max was like, oh, OK, I could like I could see myself still driving in F1. But if they can't push this forward, I think there's a big chance that they lose Max Verstappen and then F1 takes a major image hit by not being able to satisfy one of the fastest drivers in the entire world. And so if we think that the engines are bad now, not making enough changes and losing Max Verstappen would be ruinous. It would mess up any changes that they do for next year or for the rest of the regulations until 2030 or 2031. I feel like the easiest thing would be for the FIA to just give the teams or the manufacturers 15 or 20 million dollars of cap cost, extra cap cost, and let them make the changes. Let them make all the changes that they need to and then sit with it. What I've read is that, you know, no one wants to keep doing this every year until 2030. So if they can just do it now and push it through, then things would be OK. But I've talked before here that there's a lack of leadership. There's a leadership problem around the engine formula right now.
[5:45] This is becoming a clusterfuck. It really is becoming a huge mess. Hey, speaking of hurting F1's image, the FIA president, Muhammad bin Salaam, has proposed removing the term limits for FIA presidents. Currently, a president may not serve for more than 12 years total. These are four-year terms. In an official statement, the FIA said, a proposal has been put forward to establish a consistent approach to tenure across all FIA bodies similar to what currently exists for the World Councils and the Senate. I think this is complete horseshit. I think Ben Slyam has been...
[6:19] Rancorous for FIA. I think he has hurt the image of FIA, of the F1 sport, and has really not held himself in the standing befitting a president for life. We just saw last year that there is basically no way for an outsider to challenge an incumbent in the FIA. I think it's horseshit, and I don't think that there's any reason for him to
[6:43] be a president for life. Do you? I don't. And before we hit the streets of the principality, two updates on Alpine. Alpine signed a new title deal with Gucci for 2027. A new Gucci racing division will provide paddock and racewear for the team, and the Alpine cars will feature Gucci colors, which we believe will be black and gold, but I bet you'll get like a green and red stripe in there too.
[7:06] I hate the PWG livery i hate the alpine blue and pink livery it is i like pink i like pink and i fucking hate that livery i like blue and pink i love blue blue and pink goes so well together except on that fucking car the last alpine thing is that that there was a there was a narrative the past couple of months that mercedes was looking to buy a stake uh in the alpine f1 team and you know that's just was just about to spark another conversation about should there be b teams should there be sister teams or junior teams in f1 uh last week a reno source indicated that those discussions have ended so no gooch for the merc um i think this is smart mercedes doesn't need to get into uh the business of making problems for themselves if they make a world where zach brown gets in front of the media every week and says it's what what they're doing is really fucked up and i've been saying this for four years, it's going to not, there's no gain. There's like no gain to it.
[8:08] All right, that's the news. Let's go into Monaco. It's time for the 83rd Monaco Grand Prix this week, and here are the storylines to follow. Starting with the team in red, the worst kept secret this week has been that Ferrari is supposed to be good here around Monaco. They've got good low-speed performance that we've seen at previous tracks, and they have the smaller turbo in their car.
[8:28] The race starts have been really strong this season. The small turbo, I think, is a significant difference between the other cars. It could be a recipe for success in Monaco with a capital C. It could. It really could. Also, Ferrari announced an extension to Charles Leclerc's contract.
[8:49] They said going until 2028, though the race reported that that deal would go into the 2030s. This makes sense.
[8:57] Charles and Ferrari go back so long now, and at the moment, there's like not a better spot for charl i don't know if this is smart we do have to talk about the slowing down of the monaco gp uh this week monaco will see the introduction of a one-off engine mode that will reduce the amount of electrical energy that the teams can use around the track this is called rev one and this engine mode starts to taper off the battery energy at lower speeds So the standard engine mode right now starts to taper off the electricity at around 290 kilometers per hour, and then hits 0% electrical at around 345. Rev 1 moves that way up. It starts tapering at 200 kilometers per hour, and then hits 0 at 300. So by the time the electric would start to taper off on the normal setting, it will already be almost completely turned off. There will still be overtake mode, and that tapering will be a little easier. The tapering will hit zero at about 310. But it's a pretty big reduction in electrical energy. And in a 50-50 formula...
[10:07] That's a lot of that's a lot of a 50 to take off. The main crux of this is to avoid excessive speed differentials, which we saw was an issue in Japan, and they don't want the cars to approach any breaking point or a corner at too high of a speed because Monaco is already a really slow track. I understand this on paper, but man, does this just seem dumb. This just seems dumb. And I don't think that it helps with the image of Monaco as being this like weird special race we always have to do different things with. I mean, the ideal version of an engine formula would take Monaco into account. It's not a surprise. It's the most run track in all of F1. But ideally, you would leave the control of the speed to the drivers. And maybe this is a side effect of, you know, the issues that drivers have mentioned where they're not even sure when the battery is going to deploy at any given time. And, you know, safety grounds will always take priority, but just how did we get here? F1 has to take this on the chin every time.
[11:14] You slowed down the cars at the slowest racetrack already. Along with the reduced electrical deploy, Monaco will also have zero straight mode zones. That's the part where they actually flip the active aero. So there will be no active aero this weekend. And because of that, as the cars have started to make their way into Monaco this weekend, a lot of the teams have started experimenting with extra winglets on their rear wings. The rules let them do this. and we're going to see some some interesting little doodads on the back of those rear wings i think mclaren have the maybe the most comprehensive one with three pretty striking.
[11:53] Winglets on the on the back you know that there's an actuator on the rear wing so you know there's a big post back there that a lot of the teams are either replacing because they don't need it because the wings are not going to move or building on top of it so that's where you're going to see a lot of Mercedes has like a whole rig of winglets on their wing.
[12:12] Red Bull have kind of simpler winglets in the center.
[12:15] Audi, Racing Bulls, Ferrari and Cadillac also have some smaller changes in this area. But I think it's interesting. A lot of the teams will often make Bonaco specific changes.
[12:25] Parts or monaco monaco specific wings different wings of different downforce levels so it's interesting to see almost like a supplemental to the rear wing one team that i'm pretty sure won't have winglets on their rear wing is aston martin they have had a really dry spell on the upgrade front uh i mean since the season started uh they had that previous engine vibration issue which they say they have mostly taken care of but now they have a bunch of gearbox issues that have totally taken priority. In fact, this gearbox issue is so extreme, Fernando Alonso told the media that Aston Martin may not even race at Monaco. What's happening is that the Aston Martin gearbox has got unexpected downshifting in corners, and it's also doing some other issues like losing gear sync at low speeds. Alonso was quoted as saying, if you have the downshift problem like we had in Miami, probably we cannot even race because we will crash in one of the breaking points due to a very different downshift type. If we have reliabilities like at the beginning of the year, the ones that meant we completed eight or 12 laps or something like that, then it doesn't change much to be in Monaco. So we need to put everything together. One thing that will probably be changed on the ARM26 is a new seating position for Fernando Alonso. In Canada, his seat was, I guess, in a more reclined position.
[13:44] The idea being that if they reclined the driver a little bit more, then the helmet would be a little more out-of-the-wind tunnel effect and would mean less drag. But that position, along with some heavy curbs in Canada, meant that part of why Alonzo retired in Canada was just due to discomfort. Quote, we went back nearly to the 2025 seat position. So basically, we are in a known baseline now, no experiments. Alonzo also explained that the lack of preseason testing and race running meant that a comfort issue like this was missed. Quote, The longest run in Bahrain testing, I think, was eight laps. So we're still in Bahrain preparation in certain things in the team. How awful.
[14:30] How terrible. It's such a mess for Aston Martin and a real squandering of like legitimately good potential to build like a strong. They had everything. They've got Nui. They've got the new center, the new factory. They've got fucking Fernando Alonso and they can't put it together. He's got it. He says it right. We need to put everything together. Every race you need to put the entire car together the whole car should be working.
[15:04] So those are the monaco storylines that i know i will be following this weekend what uh what did i miss you let me know i'm gonna leave you on one thing hasa's uh io kamatsu uh was talking to the essential f1 podcast and he gave a quote here uh about monaco i don't think you can overtake on sunday now i mean look at suzuka even miami was quite difficult to overtake so monaco i think will be the same. I don't think it's enough now to see the overtaking at Monaco, but we have 22 events on the calendar this year. I think Monaco is very, very unique. I think rather than trying to make Monaco Sunday work, and this is my personal opinion, I think we should just accept Monaco Sunday is that. And that's going to do it. Thank you so much for listening. This will be a good Monaco weekend. This Saturday will be good. It'll be a good Saturday for Monaco. You can guarantee that. If you like this, drop a like, a comment, or a subscription. Give us a follow, and subscribe on Patreon, patreon.com slash lfgx if you want to support this. If you want to support Marbles, Marbles is coming back next week, June 11th. Marbles.win is the website for that. We will be back after Monaco ahead of the new Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix on June 14th. I've been Blind, Bryce Castillo, and this is Blind Corners. Nyeow!