[ENH] Plotting 2026 Straight Line Mode and Overtake Mode

[adityaparikh7]

Proposed new feature or change:

How do we plot the new straight line mode and overtake mode usage on speed traces? Earlier we could plot the DRS usage(shown below shaded in yellow).

[markshancock]

The new 2026 F1 aero and battery information is not yet available in the F1 public telemetry data

[bfoley12]

Adding onto this: from what I hear the graphic shown for "battery level" in the broadcast is just an estimate, not data obtained from the teams.

Surprised to hear the aero mode is also not public.

[Angeloth1]

As mentioned above, the F1 API is not currently providing us with the 2026 Aero or Battery data, and we don’t know when or if it will make it available.

I’ve come up with two ways to work around this problem:

1. A quick visual workaround (I’m working on this right now)
   Since we can’t highlight the exact “Aero On/Off” zones like we did with DRS, I’m preparing a new script for the Examples Gallery. I’ll overlay a 2025 speed trace with a 2026 speed trace on a long straight. We won’t see the boolean states, but we’ll clearly see how the new regulations change the acceleration curve at the top end. I’ll open a PR for this soon.

2. The theoretical math model (Open Idea)
   If the API remains closed, we may need to reverse-engineer the aerodynamic state. Basically, we take the speed data, calculate the acceleration (a= $\frac{dv}{dt}$​), and look for sudden spikes in acceleration when the throttle is at 100% and the brakes are at 0% (without shifting gears).

We’ll need some serious noise filtering to do this correctly and avoid false positives. I’m throwing the idea out there in case anyone with a physics/data background wants to try building a mathematical model for this. For now, I’ll focus on finishing the visual speed comparison.

[krystofham]

Hi, I saw the idea of reverse engineering and I made a small model. It will need some serious improvements as it is not done and sometimes it is not doing it's things properly, but I wanted to share it here, in case sb wanted to take a look.
Repo: https://github.com/krystofham/ERS_battery_problem
system: It works basically like @Angeloth1 mentioned. It cleans data, then it calculates the accelaration and it findes where the battery is used. NOTE: I'm not a data engineer and the values are mostly guessed. It will improvemnets and I'm working on it, but I'll love the feedback.

[theOehrly]

I can't give any useful feedback since I haven't looked into anything like this yet. But I do like that someone is trying this. It's certainly a cool project!