Formula Drift kicked off the 2026 season in style with the Streets of Long Beach event.
The first round of qualifying saw 33 drivers compete for 32 spots, along with a pair of twists.
First, two-run qualifying is back, giving the racers the possibility of recovering from one mistake. And it immediately went into play, as three drivers failed to complete their first lap.
But the much bigger change is the introduction of computer-based scoring, alongside the traditional human judges.
For the first round, the drivers competed against the computer, as a system developed by Race Data Labs gathered telemetry from each car, and evaluated the performance based on things like angle and line proximity.
If you’re worried that everything’s going to the algorithm, rest assured: there’s still three human judges rating each lap on style, so even if someone didn’t miss the wall by the projected amount, they can still score points for bouncing off it in style.
James Deane currently sits in first place, but it took an 89 on his second lap to get there. He just edged out fellow countryman Jack Shanahan, who finished with 88. Hiroya Minowa (83) and Ryan Tuerck (81) rounded out the top 4.
Eliminations continue tomorrow at 10AM—follow live online at https://www.formulad.com/live, or if you’re really looking to inhale some burnt rubber in person, tickets are available at Ticketmaster.
Photos and article: Jim Sabo
