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If you have been following the 2026 Formula 1 season, you have undoubtedly heard commentators, drivers, and team principals arguing over a highly controversial buzzword: super clipping.
It has caused massive speed differentials on the straights, ruined qualifying laps, and sparked fierce debates about driver safety. But what exactly is super clipping? Why has it suddenly become the defining tactical battleground of the new era, and how can we actually spot it using data?
Let's dive into the physical realities of the 2026 regulations and break down exactly how we calculate super clipping using raw Formula 1 data.
To understand super clipping, we first have to look at the massive shift in the 2026 engine regulations. The power output of the cars is now split roughly 50/50 between the Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) and the electrical hybrid system. Because the cars rely so heavily on electrical deployment (with around 350kW coming from the battery), they are incredibly energy-starved over the course of a lap.
To compensate and recharge the battery for later deployment, teams are forced to utilize extreme harvesting tactics.
Traditionally, a car harvests energy when the driver lifts off the throttle and coasts into a braking zone. Super clipping, however, occurs when the car's MGU-K is put into an aggressive harvest mode while the driver's foot is still 100% flat on the throttle.
Imagine flying down the main straight at Monza. Your foot is pinned to the floor, demanding maximum power. But the car's computer realizes you don't have enough battery charge to defend against the car behind you on the next lap.
The system intervenes. It siphons up to 250kW of power away from the rear wheels and dumps it back into the battery. The physical result? The car stops accelerating and actively begins to lose top speed, all while the internal combustion engine is still screaming at full throttle.
It essentially acts as an invisible parachute deployed at over 300 km/h. This unexpected deceleration is exactly why we see massive closing speeds between cars, turning standard overtaking into a high-stakes game of chicken.
To catch a car super clipping, we have to look for the exact moments where the laws of physics contradict the driver's inputs.
When analyzing a lap, we need four primary data traces: Throttle, Brake, Speed, and Time. By feeding these traces into our algorithms, we can isolate super clipping events using a method called kinematic analysis. Here is how the logic works step-by-step:
First, we look at what the driver is asking the car to do. We filter the telemetry to find moments where the driver is demanding maximum acceleration. We set a threshold to look for:
High Throttle: The throttle pedal is practically pinned to the floor (usually greater than 98% or 99% to account for sensor noise).
No Braking: The brake pedal is entirely untouched. If a driver is trail braking while staying on the throttle (to stabilize the car's differential), it will cause the speed to drop naturally, so we must exclude these moments to avoid false positives.
Next, we look at what the car is actually doing. When an internal combustion engine runs out of breath at the top of a high gear due to aerodynamic drag, the car's acceleration smoothly approaches zero. The speed flatlines.
However, when the MGU-K engages a massive harvest, the car's acceleration takes a sharp dive into negative territory. Using basic physics, we calculate the car's acceleration by finding the change in velocity over the change in time.
If the driver's intent is full acceleration, but the kinematic reality is that the car is actively decelerating, we have found our super clipping trigger.
Formula 1 telemetry sensors are incredibly sensitive. A car traveling at 320 km/h might report 319.9 km/h a fraction of a second later simply due to a bump in the track or sensor jitter.
To make our calculations bulletproof, we apply strict filters:
Minimum Speed Drop: We require the speed to drop by a definitive margin (e.g., more than 0.5 km/h) between data points to rule out micro-fluctuations.
Sustained Duration: A super clip isn't a glitch; it's a sustained harvesting event. We measure the delta time between our data points and require the decelerating event to last for a minimum duration (typically around 0.5 to 0.8 seconds).
When all these conditions align---the throttle is pinned, the brakes are off, the speed drops significantly, and it lasts for a sustained duration---we have successfully calculated a super clipping segment. We can then pinpoint exactly where it happened on the track and how much speed the driver lost.
Calculating these localized hotspots requires millions of rows of telemetry data, complex vector math, and highly optimized processing pipelines. Fortunately, you don't have to write any code to see how it's affecting your favorite driver.
We do the heavy lifting for you. Whether you want to see exactly where Max Verstappen was forced to harvest at Suzuka, or compare Charles Leclerc's super clipping duration against George Russell's, you can view the complete lap breakdowns and track maps instantly.
Ready to dive into the data? Download the F1 Live Pulse app to get real-time insights on your phone, or analyze the grid like a pro strategist on our desktop-optimized Web App.
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