Is F1 right to overhaul its car design rules again for 2026? · RaceFans

In 2023, one driver won 19 out of 22 races.

But last season ended with a 15-race run in which no one scored back-to-back wins – the longest such streak since the 2012-13 seasons.

The constructors’ championship was still hanging in the balance on the final lap of last season, and the same could have happened in the drivers’ title fight had McLaren sorted their car out sooner.

After such a close championship, all the signs point to more of the same this year. Four different teams set the quickest lap time over the final five rounds of last year, and each of them scored at least four victories over the season.

But while the prospects appear good for a close championship this year, some in F1 are already signalling their concerns about what will happen in 2026.

F1 is heading for its first change of chassis and power unit regulations in 12 years. The last time this happened it ushered in an era of unprecedented domination by a single team, Mercedes, who won 51 out of 59 grands prix over the next three years.

Even if F1 is spared as one-sided a spell as that, the competition fans enjoyed last year and anticipate this year is clearly in jeopardy. Have F1 and the FIA therefore done the right thing by scheduling an overhaul for 2026? Or will we end up viewing F1’s incoming rules as a success?

For

F1 could not afford to delay the introduction of its 2026 power unit regulations as the previous rules had not significantly increased manufacturer interest. Honda had come and gone, and no other manufacturers were likely to go up against rivals with mature designs.

Moreover, F1 needed to show it is in line with the car industry’s needs in terms of developing greener engines. The 2026 power units will generate around half of their power output from electricity and the combustion engines will run on ‘sustainable’ fuel.

The quality of the racing may suffer, perhaps only temporarily, but that is a small price to pay to ensure F1’s continued overall health.

Against

F1 arrives at successful regulations more by luck than by design. If the current rules are working well at the moment, the odds are the next ones will prove a step backwards.

That is all the more likely next year because F1 is ushering in one of its periodic changes in engine formula. The risk a manufacturer could gain the kind of advantage Mercedes enjoyed a decade ago is high.

The regulations F1 introduced in 2022 were the product of years of research to create cars which could race together more closely and to converge the performance of teams through the budget cap and the handicapping aerodynamic testing rules. This has worked, and F1 should have stuck with it for longer.

I say

It is not inevitable that a change in the engine regulations will lead to one-sided competition. The drivers’ title fight was decided at the final round of the first three seasons after the V8 engine formula was introduced in 2006.

The FIA chose to change the engine regulations to make F1 more attractive to engine manufacturers and, on balance, this appears to have worked. Audi will become a full works entrant in 2026, Honda are returning as manufacturers again, Ford will return to collaborate with Red Bull and Cadillac have set up a power units division to supply their own engines by the end of the decade.

The long-term benefits of bringing new manufacturer interest into F1 outweigh the potential deterioration of competition on the track. Even if one team claims an advantage in 2026, it is likely to only prove temporary, as the convergence in performance since 2022 shows.

There is one caveat: Whether the 2026 regulations will produce cars that race well. The 2022 rules failed in this respect, drivers are still heavily reliant on DRS to pass each other, and those who wrote the 2026 rules still expect drivers will need artificial help to pass cars.

You say

Will F1’s 2026 regulations prove to be a change for the better?

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