When lifting and moving, the car’s brain tells the V6 to keep revving and it transfers 350kW to the battery. But there is another way for the engine to charge the battery, which happens when the driver’s foot is still flat on the accelerator. F1 calls this ‘super cut’ and when this happens the car’s power output to the rear wheels is significantly reduced – any power going to the battery cannot go to the rear wheels and the V6 only has 400kW to offer. So the super cut was capped at 200 kW, leaving another 200 kW (268 hp) to propel the car.
So sometimes an F1 car can have 750 kW (1005 hp), sometimes 400 kW, and sometimes just 200 kW.
Another 21 cars will also be on the road, but not in any coordinated fashion. The software that runs the hybrid systems is capricious, and it decides when to kick in supercut and when to ramp up or down power from the MGU based on how much it’s already spent on the circuit and how much it will need.
What is the problem?
The new engine regulations are designed to give carmakers more incentive for the sport, before many of them begin to withdraw electric vehicles. It worked: Audi, Cadillacand Honda Signed to join Ferrari and Mercedes. But as I described above, the new formula means that cars run out of energy during laps, especially during qualifying where the goal is to drive the car to the limit.
as we saw In Japan, this effectively neutralized all of F1’s fast corners, as you could achieve a shorter overall lap time by using that energy elsewhere. There are no real issues with lift and coasting during the race — as previously mentioned, this is already common practice in IndyCar and endurance racing. But that’s a different matter in qualifying, and watching cars lift and coast through the 130R corner at Suzuka in Japan was something that disheartened almost every racing fan this author knows. It looks worse to drive: McLaren’s Lando Norris described it as “soul-destroying”.
