Recall the two massive Formula 1 regulation changes of the last 12 years: the switch to hybrid turbo V6s in 2014 and the introduction of the ground-effect cars in 2022. In both cases a fundamentally different technical rules set from one season to the next stretched the teams to the limit and changed the competitive landscape as a result. Now imagine changes of that scale being applied to both chassis and power units simultaneously. That’s what we have for this season.

Electrical power has increased by roughly 300% courtesy of suitably bigger batteries, while the power of the internal combustion engine (still a 1.6-litre single turbo V6) has been reduced by around 30% through a reduced fuel flow and compression ratio. It gives a roughly 50/50 power split (actually more like 47/53) between electrical and combustion sources, with a total in excess of 1000bhp.

At the same time, the venturi tunnel ground-effect regulations we saw in 2022-25 have been abandoned in favour of a return to flat bottoms (historically rhyming with the flat-bottom regulations of 1983, which banished the original ground-effect cars).

That part of the chassis/aero regulation change was motivated by the wish to create cars which counteracted the teams’ success in subverting the intent of the previous rules to create a more racing-friendly wake. But the more radical part – driver-activated moveable wings and associated power mode variation – came about purely as fixes to the potential problems posed by the vast increase in electrical power.

Fundamentally, pushing a downforce car – which all F1 cars have been since some way through 1968 – through the air costs enormous amounts of energy. So although the power units can deliver in excess of 1000bhp, they cannot do so for very long – because the battery drains its energy store faster than the car can recover it, even though the ERS-k system is now a lot more powerful. The previous ERS-h (energy recovery system – heat), whereby the turbo and an electrical motor transferred energy between each other as needed, has been dropped from the regulations, so making the cars even more energy-starved over the lap. With batteries three times the capacity of before, they are even more so.

Two new features are designed to address this. 1) When its full power is not being deployed, the combustion engine will on occasion be used as a generator for the battery, as a way of partly compensating for the energy starvation. 2) The cars can run with their wings flat down the straights, so vastly reducing the drag and therefore their energy consumption.

Furthermore, the abolition of ground-effect venturi tunnel floors together with the deletion of the rear beam wing has reduced the total downforce of the cars very significantly (helping with energy efficiency). This means they will be noticeably slower through the fast corners.

But the combination of over 1000bhp and super-low drag from flattened-out wings implied potential end-of-straight speeds in excess of 250mph, which was deemed too much. To address that, the power is steadily reduced automatically once beyond a pre-set speed. So the cars accelerate super-fast out of the corners (because the batteries, which deliver instant torque, are so much more powerful) but the end-of-straight speeds should be similar to before.

They are the most complex technical regulations F1 has ever produced, all rooted in the target of achieving that 50/50 electrical split in a downforce car. Yet paradoxically the technology of the power units is simpler: the deletion of ERS-h, a lowered compression ratio (from 18:1 to 16:1) and a reduced fuel flow limit (to around 70% of what it was, though now stipulated in energy flow – 3000 megajoules per hour – rather than mass flow) all make it easier for a new manufacturer to master the technology, which was the aim. Simpler engines, way more complex rules.

“It’s roughly a 50/50 power split with a total in excess of 1000bhp”

Drivers can choose the balance between harvesting and deploying energy through the lap, just as they will choose between the two wing modes (ie: downforce or low-drag). Furthermore, when a car is within 1sec of the one in front, the driver can activate an overtake mode harvesting more electrical energy than is otherwise available from the software and then making use of it anywhere on the lap. This replaces the previous drag reduction system. In addition even to that, there is a boost button whereby all harvesting can be cancelled to give full deployment of both electrical and combustion.

2026 TECH

Shorter, lighter, narrower

One of the primary focuses of the FIA on its rewrite of the regulations was the problem of the bulked-up, flabby Formula 1 cars of recent years, with the aim of creating more agile machinery with smaller dimensions and carrying far less weight.

For the 2026 cars, the maximum width has been reduced from 20cm to 190cm, while the wheelbase comes down by 20cm – from 360cm to 340cm. The floor has also been reduced by 15cm, the target here being to cut downforce and compel teams to run greater ride height.

The tyres will be narrower, with the aim of reducing drag: they will still be mounted on 18in wheels, but the width of the front tyres has been reduced by 25mm and the rears by 30mm.

This season’s grand prix cars will be 30kg lighter, with the minimum weight coming down from 798kg to 768kg (722kg for the car and driver, plus 46kg for the tyres).

Active aero

The return to flat bottoms and elimination of venturi ducts means a 30% cut in downforce, but this is more than offset by ‘active’ aerodynamics, with 55% less drag. There is a high-downforce mode to maximise grip in corners, above left and right, and a low-drag mode, bottom left and right, to increase top speed and allow more chance of overtaking. Drivers can change aero configuration regardless of the gap to their opponents (DRS, now gone, could only be activated within 1sec of the car in front).

A new Manual Override Mode – or Overtake Mode as it is now known – allows drivers to use the electric motor on straights for a longer time than the car ahead.

As for the wings, the front has two active flaps, while the rear consists of three elements to ensure proper balance between the front and rear axles. The wheel arches, which were adopted as partial fairings of the wheels in 2022, will also disappear.

The difference in power between an attacking driver with plenty of battery energy stored and a defending driver who has emptied his store trying to stay ahead is going to be greater than before. It seems likely therefore that the main overtaking action will move to earlier on the straights.

A further complication of that 50/50 energy target: those bigger batteries weigh a lot more and the cars were already deemed too heavy. The solution has been to reduce the maximum wheelbase (from 360cm to 340cm) and track (200cm to 180cm). The minimum weight limit has been reduced by 30kg to 770kg. And tyres have been made narrower (by 25mm at the front and 30mm at the rear), saving around 5kg.

There’s a potential irony here, though. The better the tyres are at transferring the power, the more energy-starved the cars are going to be. Partly for this reason the original plan was a much greater reduction in tyre size, with smaller diameter rims – until Pirelli pointed out that going too far in that direction would make the tyres overheat, thereby making the cars less raceable. It’s a yet-further manifestation of how this rules set is pushing against the edges of feasibility.

Managing energy more efficiently than the competition is going to be the key to success in this formula – and that will ask a lot of both car and driver. And the fuel is 100% sustainable for the first time. With the fuel flow limit measured as energy usage rather than weight, the energy density of the fuel will be a key component of that efficiency. The greater the fuel’s calorific value, the less of it will be needed for the same energy. So we’re going to see an arms race between the fuel companies. Petronas will be fuelling all Mercedes PUs, Shell all the Ferraris, ExxonMobil the two Red Bull Powertrains teams, Aramco the Honda PU in the Aston, and BP/Castrol the Audi team.

That is the radically altered basic framework the teams will be working within. Whereas the initial divergence in car design seen in the first year of the 2022 formula had converged to a general shared concept by last season, this re-set has again triggered divergence. The release of the new cars and their first running at Barcelona gave us our first clues of how the teams have responded.

In terms of what the teams are trying to achieve aerodynamically, it all seems to centre around minimising the inwash of the front wheel wake. But how they’ve gone about doing that varies a lot.

“Managing energy is going to be key to success in this formula”

Acritical detail of the FIA’s new chassis regulations is the reintroduction of bargeboards. These were banned from 2022 so as to limit how much teams could direct the front wheel wake outwards (outwash), which had a bad effect on the turbulence created behind them. But these new compulsory bargeboards are designed to do the opposite of those previously created on the teams’ own initiative; they are aligned to direct the front wheel wake inwards (inwash). This poor-quality airflow being introduced into the underfloor will reduce the downforce it creates.

So teams are desperately trying to: a) minimise the effectiveness of the inwashing barge boards; and b) generate as much outwash as possible elsewhere.

2026 TECH

Power unit: efficiency explained

With the aim of reducing emissions and costs, the new generation of engines are still hybrid, but are different to the old (A). They will probably be the most efficient engines in the world, with almost 300% more power produced by the battery (D).

Gone is the MGU-h, the electric generator that captured energy from the heat of the exhaust and the rotation of the turbo (B). The MGU-k (C), the electric motor that recovers energy under braking and pushes the car on acceleration, is strengthened from 160bhp to 470bhp, while the internal combustion engine drops from 750bhp to approximately 550bhp for a total power output of over 1000bhp.

There is a smaller tank for the new synthetic e-fuel (E – 90kg, down from 110kg), which captures CO  from the air, with the emissions (F) further reduced.

A: Combustion engine
B: Turbo
C: MGU-k
D: Battery
E: Fuel tank
F: Emissions

Mercedes’ reaction to the regulations is the W17, featuring a very distinctive high-nose design and wide sidepod which stops a long way above the floor edges, creating a big channel to the ‘coke bottle’ section in the lower rear bodywork, apparently maximising the flow around the diffuser wall to speed up the air extraction from the underfloor (thereby increasing downforce). This car, in the hands of George Russell and Kimi Antonelli, ran by far the most laps in its three days of Barcelona testing and for much of it was the quickest (though pipped to fastest single lap on the final day by Lewis Hamilton’s Ferrari). The car’s speed and reliability gave the impression of a team that hit the ground running better than anyone else. But these are early days and perhaps we simply saw more of this car’s potential than that of the others.

The higher the car’s nose, the greater the airflow capacity which can be fed to the underfloor, but there is a complex regulation combination which determines how high the nose can be. Essentially the closer the cockpit is to the front axle line (and both cockpit and front axle positioning have some allowance), the higher the nose can be. The potential downside of bringing the front wheels and cockpit closer together is that it can make outwashing the front wheel wake more difficult. There is a trade off to be made – and one which is then set for the season.

Mercedes appears to have favoured the high-nose approach, much more so than Ferrari. Consequently, the Ferrari’s under-nose volume – and the amount of undercut of the nose underside – is visibly smaller. The aero team has clearly favoured a different trade off to Mercedes, yet in their early testing form at least, their lap time potential appeared similar.

2026 TECH

Ground effect era has gone…

Another fundamental change for 2026 concerns the underbodies of the new cars. The ground-effect era of 2022- 2025 is now over, and from this year onwards flat floors between the two axles have been mandated.

The drawings compare the pre-2026 Formula 1 underbody, in black, with that of the new-generation cars, in red. Wing-car designs have therefore been consigned to history, just as they were in 1983 – albeit this happened at the 11th hour – after the ban on side skirts.

The lateral venturi ducts will therefore disappear, and only a small extractor will be permitted, at the rear axle. To minimise the effects of this, aerodynamicists will likely opt for a ‘rake’ set-up, with the front lower than the rear, taking advantage of the flat underbody and rear diffuser to recover some of the downforce that will be lost with the coming into force of the new regulations.