The new rules being brought in for 2026 are the biggest change in F1 for years – if not ever.
Cars will be smaller, nimbler and more environmentally friendly.
They will be 30kg lighter, 10cm narrower and have engines with a near 50-50 split between electric and internal combustion power – and use fully sustainable fuels.
Will the racing be any different? Yes, but how different is one of many unknowns.
The chassis and engine rules have never both been changed at the same time to this extent.
There will be new aerodynamic rules, and the power units, while of similar architecture to the past 12 years, have been significantly modified in terms of technology.
The engines remain 1.6-litre V6 turbo hybrids, but the MGU-H, which recovers energy from the exhaust and turbo, has been removed, while the proportion of power produced by the hybrid part of the engine has been more or less doubled to about 50%.
This has required major changes to aerodynamics. Not only has the venturi-underbody ground effect philosophy introduced in 2022 been abandoned, but movable front and rear wings have been introduced. That’s to increase straight-line speed to enable more energy harvesting under braking.
For some time, there have been varying levels of concern expressed by the drivers about how this will affect the racing.
There will be some idiosyncrasies, it seems. The internal combustion engine will spend a fair bit of its time acting as a generator for the battery. So engines will be at maximum revs in some corners, for example.
The DRS overtaking aid has gone, because the opening of the rear wing is required for other purposes. So instead there will be a push-to-pass button that gives extra electrical energy for a time.
“It’s really, really hard to predict what it’s going to be like,” says Lewis Hamilton. “I don’t want to dog it. I don’t want to say too many negative things.
“It feels so much different and I’m not sure you’re going to like it. But maybe I’ll be surprised. Maybe it’ll be amazing. Maybe overtaking will be incredible. Maybe it’ll be easier to overtake. I don’t know.
“We have less downforce, more torque. Driving in the rain, I can imagine it’s going to be very, very, very tough. Much harder than it is already with what we have today. But as I said, we might arrive and we might have better grip than we anticipated.”
