2026 - Race 2 [China]

[F1nKS]

Is Formula 1 just an updated version of Mario Kart?

Will China provide a more compelling race?

Will Toto be allowed to purchase the 24% stake in Alpine to keep Horner out of F1?

How many laps will Aston Martin do in China before retiring their car so that their drivers don't get permanent nerve damage?

[Nitrodaze]

Racing nowadays is a battle of Machine Learning code, configuration, and the ability to train it properly. This is one of the reasons why Mercedes customer teams are half a second slower than Mercedes and Ferrari. These cars need to learn the China circuit. Hence, running the cars in various simulations becomes necessary to train the car to work out the characteristics of the track and driving patterns at various points on the track.
Teams that are not on top of configuring and training these Machine learning engines would also suffer in China. When Stella accused Mercedes of keeping something back from them, that made me laugh. Why should Mercedes help you
configure and train your car when you are a direct competitor for the title?

McLaren is paying the price of not running the new engine in preseason testing. They missed out on understanding the machine learning software of the Mercedes engine. All of this is partly because of the development time they sacrificed from the 2026 programme to sort out Norris' car to get him to win the driver's title. We should not forget that they also get a shorter wind tunnel time as constructor world champions.