A Complete Guide To ERS In F1 26

Added: 2026-06-03

[00:00:00]So, let's start with the basics and the power split. It's actually 5446 despite the 50/50 advertising in real life with 350 kW coming from the electrical motor and 415 kW coming from the Mercedes combustion engine. The battery itself can hold 4 megajou of power and can be either discharged or recharged in just 11.4 seconds. So, it really doesn't last very long at all. In terms of recharging, you can recharge between 6 and 9 megles per lap. Uh, and that depends on the track, whether you're in qualifying practice or the race, and also overtake mode. We'll get on to that in just a moment. But first, I want to talk about clipping or super clipping because these terms are often misunderstood, and I think it's important to fully understand them. So, first up, clipping. This is just basically not deploying any electrical energy. The reason it's called clipping is cuz you normally go from deploying some energy to stopping deploying energy. So, your energy has then clipped. It's cut. So clipping often kicks in either if you've completely run out of battery, if you're saving some of that battery for the next straight, or by a rulesmandated power down ramping system. So up to 290 km an hour, you can deploy the full 350 kW of power.

[00:01:11]However, once you hit 290 km an hour, you have to follow a graph of power down ramping. So the more your speed builds up, the less electrical power you're allowed to deploy. So, this is often why you see cars with very similar top speeds because the combustion engine alone just isn't powerful enough to keep accelerating the car. So, once the electrical power reduces enough, you just reach a V-Max and that is just your top speed and you just sit there until your battery runs out. And while we're on the topic of clipping, there's also a softening to the power down ramping. So, you're not allowed to go straight from the full 350 kW power right down to zero because if there's a car close behind you, they will just crash into the back of you. This is exactly the same as real life. It varies slightly track to track.

[00:01:48]there's either 50 kW or 100 kW per second that you're allowed to drop. So in the case of 50 kW per second, you can go from 350 kW down to 0 kW, but it takes 7 seconds to get there. And then in the game, by extension, it also applies to super clipping. So an additional second on top of that in order to reach 50 kW of super clipping.

[00:02:07]So this is why in the game, if you're on boost mode and you go straight to none, it doesn't immediately apply. You'll still be using some battery. I think there's going to be a lot of confusion around this. People like, oh, you know, it's not working. It's bugged. It's not bugged. It's exactly how it should be in real life. It just takes a while to action your power change essentially.

[00:02:23]Now, super clipping, by contrast, is actively harvesting energy into the battery. So, you're running the electric motor in reverse against the combustion engine. Now, that part is key because you have to be on the throttle. The combustion engine has to be producing power in order for you to be super clipping. So, if you're full throttle, your combustion engine may be producing that maximum 415 kW of power. However, you could be super clipping 350 kW of that. So, you actually only end up with 65 kW of power reaching the rear wheels.

[00:02:56]Now, this is one of the key ways that the game differs to real life because you cannot super clip fully. So, in the game, super clip is completely automatic. When you hit 270 km an hour, either in none, medium, or hotlap modes, you start super clipping. And it does vary track to track the amount you super clip. At some tracks, like Baku, there's no super clipping at all. At other tracks like Australia, there is 75 kW of super clipping. So, a lot less than 350 kW we see in real life. And it does kick in at that 270 km an hour. So, often you're only halfway down a straight and you start super clipping, which is just not what we see in real life where they do it much much later in the straight.

[00:03:35]However, you won't see your battery in the game immediately start recharging at 270 km an hour. And that's because of that power down ramping I talked about earlier. So, if you were just in boost mode, and we'll get to that in a moment, and deploying the full 350 kW of power, and you switch to medium mode, and then suddenly the game wants to super click cuz you're doing more than 270 km an hour, it can't immediately go from 350 down to minus 75 because of the power down ramping. It has to take a few seconds to get there. So, you often will see it a little delay there once you get to 270 km an hour based on your mode, based on your charge level, based on lots of things. I should add as well that medium does super clip a little bit harder than hotlap mode. So if you do want some super clipping, it's worth turning your ears modes down a little bit. This video is sponsored by myself and that's because I run a setup shop called VSSE or Virtual Setup Engineer focused primarily on making premium setups for the Formula 1 game. Now, we've already found about a second to a second and a half per lap over the default setups. But more importantly for this video, we're also going to be publishing some ERS maps, telling you exactly when to lift, exactly when to use boost, exactly how to optimize the allimportant ERS on the 2026 cars. So, you'll get that alongside both fast and stable setups for both the race and qualifying and wet weather setups along with a whole host of other data to allow you to get the maximum out of the Formula 1 2026 DLC. The link for that is down in the description. Let's get back to the video. Onto boost mode, then. And this is quite simple because it's virtually identical to overtake mode last year. Boost mode is basically you asking the engine, hey, give me full deployment. Now, now this is still limited by the power down ramping. So, if you're doing 345 km an hour and you press boost, you still won't get any charge cuz it's fundamentally limited by that. However, it will give you more power than either in medium or hotlap mode. And it will also not superclipip at all in boost mode. However, it will drain the battery very very quickly.

[00:05:31]Now, in the game, this does give you the full 350 kW of power. However, in real life, that's not how it works anymore.

[00:05:37]Since Miami, there's been some slightly different rules, and you can now only boost up to 150 kW of power. So, we'll see if that changes in a patch later on down the line with the game. So, to get overtake mode, you have to be within 1 second of the car in front at the detection point, which is normally at the end of the lap. In the game, you can see this denoted on the mini map by a little blue circle. Once you've got overtake mode, you then retain it for the entire next lap and it is completely automatic. You don't need to do anything. You also get overtake all the time in both qualifying and practice.

[00:06:07]So, what does overtake mode do then?

[00:06:09]Well, first up, it gives you an extra half a megajel of harvesting, which is about an extra 12% of battery every single lap that you've got it. However, more key than that is it actually changes that power down ramping graph that I talked about earlier and it allows you to deploy full power for much much longer. Now, although there is a slightly higher top speed with overtake mode, I don't find this actually makes much of a difference cuz realistically by the time you reach top speed, you've normally run out of battery anyway. So, I don't find it really matters. However, you do get to that top speed a lot faster and that is a key way that you can potentially overtake. It's quite interesting though because it only really gets you side by side unless your rivals run out of battery. It doesn't allow you to blast past them like maybe DRS did previously. So, it is a quite interesting tactical mod, but it is definitely worth having because it's all just completely automatic. It's a no-brainer to have it whenever you can.

[00:06:59]So, let's talk about harvesting then, generating power into your battery. Now, in the game, there's a little red circle that fills up every lap, just the same as it was last year. And this is your harvesting limit. Now, I said earlier it does very track what this harvesting limit is. It also of course varies whether you got overtake mode or not.

[00:07:16]But basically your aim is to fill this red circle every single lap, especially in the race. However, you don't want to overfill it because then you're just wasting recharge. So let's say for example, you lifted and coasted a lot earlier in the lap and before the final turn, this red bar fills up. The red circle fills up. What that means is when you hit the brakes in the final corner, you're getting no recharge. you just wasted that energy and you would have been better off lifting and coasting less earlier in the lap. Now, some tracks require really quite a lot of lifting and coasting in order to reach this harvesting limit while others require a very very little amount. It does vary a lot track to track. Now, when you do lift and coast in the game, it gives you 250 kW of recharge into the battery and then when you break, you get the maximum 350 kW going into the battery. Now, you do also recharge a little bit when you're on partial throttle. Let's say you're on 25% throttle. What will actually be happening is the combustion engine will be running at full power, but the electrical motor will be working in reverse in order to recharge the battery to give you the exact amount of power that you're requesting at that moment.

[00:08:19]Now, in the game, the best advice I can give you not only is to try and fill that red circle every lap by lifting and coasting smartly at the end of straights, but also to be very purposeful with the throttle. So, if you're just tapping the throttle through a corner or you're riding the throttle midc corner when you could be lifting, you're just missing recharge. So, what you want to do is break a little bit later and then be fully lifted through the throttle and only use that throttle when you actually really do want to accelerate off the corner. You should also be smart here. If, for example, two cars in front are side by side, you may as well lift a little bit earlier because you're not going to go three wide. Lift earlier, get some recharge.

[00:08:54]You're more likely to overtake them on the next straight. And vice versa, if you think you can get an overtake done, don't lift as much. Just keep your throttle pinned, get an overtake done, and then maybe try and lift a little bit later on the lap while giving the car behind some dirty air. So, we now know how to harvest the energy. But how do we deploy it? Well, in real life, they do maximum power at the start to the straits. Then, they slowly taper off this power until they've got no power at all coming from the battery. And at the very end of the straight, they do a full power super clip to recharge the battery as much as they can before hitting the brakes and then continuing to recharge.

[00:09:26]However, in the game, this isn't possible because we don't have full power super clipping. Now, the jury is still out on the best way to deploy power in the game. However, all the advice I give you for now is use boost at the start of the straits, not the ends of the straits because this is just like doing in real life. You want maximum power at the start of the straight. So, probably if you don't know what you're doing, leave it in medium medium ERS mode because that does a lot of things automatically like the super clipping, but do use a little bit of boost on corner exits. And of course, also use boost when you want to go for an overtake. Now, my personal strategy is a little bit complicated and it probably will change, but I'll tell you about it anyway. So, what I do is I actually leave boost mode on at all times. What this means is I've always got access to full power, obviously pending the power down ramping that we talked about earlier. So, if for example on corner exit I want to go for it, I can just floor the throttle. Or if someone's going to try and overtake me and I've still got some charge, I can floor the throttle. You heard there though, flooring, because I am often not at full throttle. So, I will try and emulate exactly what I do in real life by going full throttle on corner exit and getting a full power deployment.

[00:10:32]Then I will start to lift the throttle partway down the straight to reduce the deployment. And then I will try and lift it to the extent that I'm not deploying anything. And then I will lift fully just before the braking zone in order to lift the coast like we talked about before. Now, this is a very strange way of deploying power. It's how I'm doing it right now. I don't think it will stay. And honestly speaking, I don't even think I'm going to recommend it to you guys to do because it's just quite counterintuitive to be lifting the throttle while you're in the middle of a straight. The reason I do it though, there's a couple. First up, it allows me to completely avoid the power down ramping that we talked about earlier.

[00:11:07]So, normally if you are in boost mode and you switch it to none, it takes a few seconds depending on the track to actually reach zero deployment and then also into super clipping. However, because I'm controlling it with my right foot, I can immediately go from 350 kW right down to some super clipping within an instant, as as quick as I can move the pedal. So, I quite like that. It also allows me to immediately respond to my rival. So, if someone's getting the jump on me and starting to gain on me, I can just fall the throttle. The same on corner exits. It means I can just press the throttle on corner exits and I've immediately got full power without needing to press the boost button. It also means that I've got a nice consistent throttle curve, throttle shaping, throttle mapping, whatever you want to call it. My full throttle is always on corner exits 350 kW of power from the battery, plus obviously the 415 from the electric motor. However, if you're in none mode, your full throttle only does 415 kW of power. So, if you're changing your modes all the time, especially on corner exits, you find that your throttle does very different things. Sometimes full throttle is 415 kW of power. Sometimes it's over 750 kW of power and that's massively different.

[00:12:16]So while I'm in boost all the time, I know exactly how much power I'm going to get in any one time and I can be nice and smooth with the throttle and I can rely on it. Something else that I do is I never hit 100% charge on the battery.

[00:12:27]The reason being if I'm at 100% I cannot recharge the battery. So if I'm about to hit the brakes, it's just wasted energy.

[00:12:34]I want that to go into my battery. And what it actually means is I should have used boost on the on the previous straight to gain a bit of pace before then recharging at the next corner and still ending up at 100% on corner exit.

[00:12:45]Now, in real life, this is really critical because if they're at 100% power, they don't get the um retardation on the rear wheels and they don't get the stopping power and it just everything goes wrong. In the game, we don't have any of that. You still have the same amount of stopping power as you would normally get anyway. So, it doesn't affect that. It's just purely wasted energy. So, there we go.

[00:13:04]Hopefully that made some sense, but don't worry if some of it is confusing because it just is a complicated topic.

[00:13:10]The only reason I understand it is because I've done significant research into the Formula 1 2026 regulations because I find it interesting and I'm just lucky that that happens to have carried over onto the game because they've done such a realistic implementation. Anyway guys, hope you enjoyed and I'll catch you next time.

[00:13:24]Thanks for watching. Bye-bye.