{"id":457559,"date":"2026-02-06T12:26:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T12:26:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/457559\/"},"modified":"2026-02-06T12:26:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T12:26:11","slug":"george-russell-identifies-unique-hack-to-driving-2026-f1-cars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/457559\/","title":{"rendered":"George Russell identifies unique hack to driving 2026 F1 cars"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.motorsportweek.com\/tag\/russell\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">George Russell<\/a> has identified a unique hack on how to drive cars in the new <a href=\"https:\/\/www.motorsportweek.com\/series\/single-seater\/formula-1\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Formula 1<\/a> regulations, which he says has been corroborated by other drivers in the field.<\/p>\n<p>The new regulations cycle sees a variety of changes, the cornerstone of which is the new 50-50 hybrid power units, equally split between internal combustion and electric power.<\/p>\n<p>This requires drivers to harvest energy on every lap, and be more strategic when it comes when and where to overtake.<\/p>\n<p>The aerodynamic changes have helped see the back of ground-effect, with the new cars now able to run on much higher ride heights, and the likelihood of pre-ground-effect high rakes being commonplace.<\/p>\n<p>No ground-effect means no more porpoising, and for drivers, this is a welcome development, given the physical problems it was creating, particularly with back discomfort.<\/p>\n<p>And Russell was quick to state his pleasure at being able to jump out of a car without such an ailment.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s finally nice to have no porpoising, to be honest. My back is having an easier time of things!\u201d he joked to select media including Motorsport Week.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"577\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Mercedes-F1-2026-test-1024x577.webp.webp\" alt=\"Mercedes have been putting in the miles in Barcelona. Image: Mercedes\" class=\"wp-image-236756\"  \/>George Russell has identified an unusual way of driving his new Mercedes W17 [pictured with Kimi Antonelli at the wheel] on certain circuits. Image: Mercedes<\/p>\n<p>George Russell identifies 2026 F1 quirk<\/p>\n<p>In terms of negativity, Russell has yet to find anything significant on this front, but commented on how the new PUs are leaving drivers feeling somewhat short of power when tackling a high gradient of circuit, a predicament noticed at last week\u2019s Barcelona test.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere hasn\u2019t been anything as yet that has surprised us in a negative way,\u201d the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mercedesamgf1.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Mercedes<\/a> driver added.\u00a0\u201cI would also say, more from a power unit side, there was obviously lots of chat around potentially having a downshift in the straights in some circumstances.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat will probably continue to be the case, but it doesn\u2019t feel that abnormal, to be honest.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe way I would describe it is like if you\u2019re driving your car up a hill, you\u2019re still going flat out, but you\u2019re losing a bit of speed, and you may just downshift to give you a bit of extra revs to get up that hill.\u00a0That\u2019s how it sometimes feels when the engine is harvesting, and you\u2019re regenerating the battery. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere are occasions that you can downshift at the end of a straight, even while you\u2019re flat out, but it felt more bizarre in the simulator than it did in reality, to be honest.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI spoke with a few other drivers, and they actually commented the same, so that was quite intuitive.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-vivid-red-color has-text-color has-link-color has-medium-font-size wp-elements-f30573c262909bc6b134893e42111598\">READ MORE \u2013 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.motorsportweek.com\/2026\/02\/04\/george-russell-reveals-2026-optimism-in-hilarious-not-a-turd-analysis-of-mercedes\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">George Russell reveals 2026 optimism in hilarious \u2018not a turd\u2019 analysis of Mercedes<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"George Russell has identified a unique hack on how to drive cars in the new Formula 1 regulations,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":457560,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,578,576,577,3024,1881,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-457559","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-george-russell","14":"tag-mercedes","15":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457559","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=457559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457559\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/457560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=457559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=457559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=457559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}