{"id":351371,"date":"2025-12-17T15:51:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-17T15:51:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/351371\/"},"modified":"2025-12-17T15:51:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-17T15:51:10","slug":"toto-wolff-insists-2026-f1-cars-could-reach-400km-h-theoretically","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/351371\/","title":{"rendered":"Toto Wolff insists 2026 F1 cars could reach 400km\/h\u2026 theoretically"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Back in August, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.motorsport.com\/team\/mercedes\/5\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Mercedes<\/a> team principal Toto Wolff suggested 2026 Formula 1 cars would be able to reach 400km\/h.<\/p>\n<p>F1 is moving to new technical regulations for 2026, with revamped power units featuring a near-50:50 split between combustion and electric power. Cars will have less downforce and drag; combined with active aerodynamics, this means they will retain high straightline speed.<\/p>\n<p>Wolff\u2019s suggestion still raised some eyebrows. \u201cWell, I felt like we need to give that engine a little bit of a marketing boost, because people were talking it down and it&#8217;s such an amazing piece of kit,\u201d the Austrian told the Beyond The Grid podcast.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you put it all together, we could do 400km\/h or maybe even exceed it, but obviously you&#8217;re going to run out of energy for the next straight and then not be quick enough.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>   <img decoding=\"async\" draggable=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/1763392391_14_f1-concept.jpg\" alt=\"F1 concept\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" loading=\"lazy\"\/> <\/p>\n<p class=\"title\">F1 concept<\/p>\n<p class=\"photographer\">Photo by: FIA<\/p>\n<p>Mercedes High Performance Powertrains managing director Hywel Thomas, who was also on the podcast, analysed the new power units in more depth.<\/p>\n<p>Thomas explained cars will be even faster than the previous generation early on the straights, but energy management will hinder their ultimate top speed.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think the start-of-straight performance is going to be very, very similar to today,\u201d he said. \u201cWe&#8217;ve got the turbocharger that hasn&#8217;t got an electric machine on it anymore, so you could get some turbo lag. We&#8217;ll be filling in that turbo lag with the electric, potentially.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo, I think in terms of start-straight, the performance is going to be pretty epic in comparison to what we&#8217;ve got today. But we know we&#8217;re going to start to derate earlier on the straight because we haven&#8217;t got enough electrical energy to use it all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Read Also:<\/p>\n<p>            We want your opinion!<\/p>\n<p class=\"mt-auto\">What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?<\/p>\n<p>            <a href=\"#\" class=\"ms-link text-link font-bold\">Take our 5 minute survey.<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"mt-1 text-body\">&#8211; The Motorsport.com Team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Back in August, Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff suggested 2026 Formula 1 cars would be able to reach&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":351372,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,578,576,577,1881,82,152618],"class_list":{"0":"post-351371","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-formula-1","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-f1","11":"tag-formula-1","12":"tag-formula1","13":"tag-mercedes","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-toto-wolff-insists-2026-f1-cars-could-reach-400km-hu2026-theoretically"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=351371"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351371\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/351372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=351371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=351371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=351371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}