The small, nimble 2026 car that F1 rejected: ‘We ended up with a camel!’

With six months to go until 2026 cars begin testing, driver grumbles about F1’s all-new regulations grew louder last weekend at Spa.

Too big, too heavy and too technical were among the biggest complaints of the cars which are only slightly smaller and lighter than the current generation.

But it could have all been different: a shrunken and more nimble car was on the cards while the chassis and power unit rules were being rewritten for 2026.

Pat Symonds has revealed the details of a proposed design that he drew up around five years ago while he was F1’s chief technical officer. Featuring a four-cylinder hybrid engine fitted transversely, across the car, as well as a transverse gearbox, it would have reduced the wheelbase to around 3100mm. That’s 300mm shorter than next year’s cars and a return to the dimensions of Lewis Hamilton’s 2008 championship-winning McLaren.

“I’d laid out a really nice car, had a little transverse four cylinder engine with a transverse gearbox, really small car,” said Symonds in a speech at Cranfield University earlier this month. “I thought this might be the way forward.”

But after F1’s governing body, the FIA, consulted with F1’s power unit manufacturers, Symonds’ proposal was dropped in favour of longitudinal V6 hybrids.

“You’ve got the normal thing where you’ve got a group of people trying to design a race horse and you end up with a camel,” said Symonds, who now works as a consultant for the new Cadillac F1 team. “I think that’s what we’ve got.”

Symonds’ design addressed many of the criticisms that have been levelled at modern F1 cars, which have increased vastly in size and weight as a result of complex hybrid technology and improved safety, hampering overtaking opportunities and affecting handling and tyre wear.

Next year’s cars will have a wheelbase reduced by 200mm to 3400mm, and their width will be cut by 100mm to 1900mm. The minimum weight is likely to be around 30kg lighter than the current 800kg (exact figures depend on final tyre specification) but, as Hamilton pointed out when the regulations were announced, “while it is a step in the right direction, they are still heavy.”