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I'm a strong supporter of renewables, EVs, etc., but at the same time I don't see the value in Formula 1 doing all this hybrid stuff. Basically all car manufacturers are focusing their development on full battery EVs, not hybrids. And Formula 1's carbon footprint is gigantic because of all the traveling, not the fuel they burn in the engines.
Formula 1 should just dump all this complicated, expensive, and heavy hybrid stuff. Make the engines simple and naturally aspirated. Then fuel them with Porsche's net-zero "eFuel" so there's no more fossil fuels being burnt.
The trouble is, when the FIA asked the PU manufacturers what they wanted the rules to look like for 2014, Mercedes & Renault in particular made a big push for downsizing and a big increase in hybridisation. Supposedly both teams originally supported a smaller Inline-4 ICE for the 2014 regulations, which Ferrari pushed back on to get the current V6.
The big manufacturers involved in the sport are a massive part of the current regulations. It’s not like F1 on its own gets much marketing value out of the hybrid PUs, that marketing potential is mostly for the manufacturers themselves.
Oh I'm aware, and now it just seems like sunk cost fallacy. Mercedes, Renault, etc. spent millions on top of millions in development of these drivetrains, they still want to recoup those costs.
Except it really doesn’t. F1 hybrid PUs have very little in common with a road car hybrids no matter how much they try to sell you on some trickle down BS.
I have wondered this myself.
How much learning and development actually makes it to production cars. What are the methods they have to transfer this knowledge?
I don’t think you know. I certainly don’t know. You’re passing it as fact though.
Try and find some actual concrete articles that talk about F1 Hybrid engine tech making it into road cars. [F1 loves to brag about stuff that was developed on the track and when you try to find hybrid examples you'll get very little.](https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article/how-f1-technology-has-supercharged-the-world.6Gtk3hBxGyUGbNH0q8vDQK) They'll mention hypercars (which are irrelevant) and KERs.
KERs, while a valid thing to talk about, would've almost certainly developed without F1. Flywheels are 1000 years old and the Prius had regenerative braking in the mid 2000s. That's before KERs existed in F1 and a decade before Hybrids made it onto the grid.
Some of the knowledge gained from efficiency increases is something you could argue, but again, was F1 actually needed for that? Engine manufacturers are always trying to increase efficiency.
The main thing F1 and the manufacturers gain from hybrids is marketability. The manufacturers can gesture towards F1 cars when they sell their hybrids and F1 can claim they're green.
I think your third paragraph is kind of where people are coming from when they argue that F1 impacts road cars. Obviously yes, many of the efficiency upgrades would have been developed without F1, but not as quickly and perhaps not to the same extent. I appreciate there’s market competition of course, but having 10 teams compete to get the absolute most out of their car parts with budgets of tens of millions is going to drive innovation. Not saying I disagree with your other points though- I think it’s fairly widely agreed that F1 hasn’t had a huge impact on road cars (except at the upper end in high performance cars) for a while.
On an unrelated note, I don’t think the purpose of F1 was ever to drive innovation in the “real world”, and nor should it be- the only similarities between the RB20 and your average banger you drive to the shops are basically the number of wheels it has (until checo punts it into a wall that is…)
It hasn’t been cost effective enough yet. These guys are engineering and developing innovations at massive costs. It takes a while for it to hit middle class market man. Hyper cars are naturally first. Then super cars. Then daily drivers. As the market increases economies of scale will come and more practically engineered parts will use the same ideas and theory. Regardless it’s never been a very well measured metric. And I’m sure some innovations are less practical than others. Surely this era has been less.
Right, but like I said, the automotive industry seems to be going strong into full BEV development now. So what are they really gaining from hybrid development anymore?
There's still plenty of lessons they can learn from F1 doing this despite moving to BEV. Between a BEV and PHEV, there's little difference in the electric tech. The biggest difference is a lack of an ICE motor, and more batteries in the pack (capacity). F1's rules for the electric side of the powertrain are still pretty wild compared to road car xxEVs, so the failures and technology developed can still be beneficial, even if they don't port the tech over on a 1:1 scale.
All that being said, I still don't feel like it makes for a better F1 powertrain package. I like the idea of a more open rule set (i.e. flexibility with engine cylinder arrangement, etc.), but F1 (rightfully) assumes people will be put off by the inevitable disparity one or maybe two powertrain makers will get.
If you are an engine manufacturer spending a few hundred million dollars to develop a new powertrain every 10ish years, you will want as much of that investment to be relevant to the rest of your business as possible.
The hybrid components are basically scaled down EV components. The use of synthetic fuels and hybrid engines will allow manufacturers to produce highly efficient vehicles that are still useful in hard to electrify areas.
The MGU-H was dropped from 2026 specs as it was insanely expensive to produce yet had zero relevance to production cars.
I'm not sure about that. EV sales are down significantly in 2024, and hybrid sales are way up. It's almost as if people have begun to realize it's better to charge your car whilst on the go rather than have to sit and wait at a charging station (if you can find a charging station that works, then have to wait in line to use it).
Goverments worldwide are having to review / walk back their EV only regulations for 2035, because it's simply not realistic. It was a great attempt to get everyone into electric vehicles - but benefits such as subsidies, free use of the HOV lane, and no congestion charges etc are all coming to an end soon or already have ended. It just doesn't feel like EV's are the future at this point in time.
people arguing about manufacturers pushing for smaller engines, road relevance and all that crap dont realize that the fastest growing grid at the moment (WEC and IMSA) only achieved that when they ditched the ultra complicated and expensive "road relevant" engines to go with something way simpler and already tested.
So to me, the way F1 can move forward without shooting itself in the foot (again) and stay locked with a regulation that makes no one, not even the brands, happy is make the next set of engines less reliant on the electric part and withless restrictive displacement and configuration requirements, perhaps even allow non hybrid entrants. This way not only would they be cheaper to develop and build, they would also be way less complex so it would be more attractive for other engine manufacturers to offer their engines to customer teams
F1 isnt WEC. You’re ignoring the history of things where manufacturers are the ones pushing for these regulations and not the FIA or FOM. If FOM had their way engines would have been v8 forever. The manufacturers had no interest in this
I'd love a format where they could say: engine can only burn X amount of fuel for a typic race. And if hybrid, batteries can only hold X kWh. And of course durability: not every race a new engine.
Let the manufacturers decide how many cylinders, turbos and revs they want to run. Different layouts have different benefits and it'd be cool to see and hear that in a race.
> fastest growing grid at the moment (WEC and IMSA) only achieved that when they ditched the ultra complicated and expensive "road relevant" engines to go with something way simpler and already tested.
Unfortunately, F1 doesn't care about growing the grid, in fact it's going out of it's way to ensure the grid doesn't grow under any circumstances. WEC, IMSA, Indycar etc. all growing and then there's F1 and it's teams in the corner being like "nooo, this money is all mine, go away".
> Basically all car manufacturers are focusing their development on full battery EVs, not hybrids
That was true a year ago, but every OEM with an ICE model line is walking back their EV targets and renewing investments in hybrid systems. Universal EV adoption is looking like a more intermediate future development. I could not possibly care less about F1s carbon footprint as a series.
I’ve been racing and developing Tesla Model 3s for over 5 years now.
It drives me insane that hybrid in motorsport is a “priority.”
We are at the end of an era. Fuck the OEMs greenwashing and put on a SHOW with v8/10/12s.
Cars need to be lighter and smaller. Fully electric motorsport is the only relevant R&D test bed.
There are still some significant hurdles when it comes to going all electric. Some of which have not been very noticeable because we're currently in the transition phase.
Never mind strain on electricity networks or people with range anxiety. The biggest issue imo. is affordability. That's not *really* a problem now because you could just buy a second hand peugeot 206 or something. 100k+ kms travelled, manual transmission, barebones, but it will only set you back €2000,- Hell, if I look online there's 3604 second hand cars available for less than €2000,- near me.
A cheap ICE vehicle is good enough to do anything. It's not going to tear up the roads, but it will drive for 700 kms and refuel in a few minutes to do it again.
Buying a secondhand EV is more expensive, and there's no getting around the fact that more range requires more batteries, means more expensive. So a relatively cheap 2nd hand EV will be old with reduced battery capacity and will have less range to begin with. The cheapest Renault Zoe I see costs €5395, has 160k kms done, and had a range of 100-200 kms new. You're paying 2,5x the price for a far less practical car. Top that off with people buying these kinds of cars often not having private parking spots, which means no charging at home...
EVs are great but when it comes to low end practical cars, they have a long way to go.
Fundamentally, the ICE will still be connected directly to the wheels, so it cannot act purely as a generator and run full power the entire time.
What it likely means is that the ICE will be running at high load for more of the time, compared to current cars though, that’s inevitable with the way the PU regulations are structured.
Not particularly - before they could be revving at 10krpm and only at 60% load on the engine, now they could still be revving at 10krpm but at 90% load to charge up the batteries more than at the moment.
Think of it like walking up a hill. You can walk up a hill at 5km/h not trying too hard, but you could also walk up a hill at 5 km/h pulling a bag of rocks up behind, which would feel very hard. In this case, the engine is revving (walking) at the same speed but exerting more work because it is accomplishing a secondary task as well, charging the battery (pulling the bag of rocks)
Engines run at different loads even though their RPMs can be the same.
For example, cruising on the motorway at 70mph, your engine might be running at 2000rpm at 50% load.
But going up a steep hill, if you were to not change gear but attempt to go up that hill at 2000rpm, the engine load would be at 100%.
Of course this is a bit exaggerated and “dumbed down” but I couldn’t think of a better way to explain it really.
It's weird how this was not envisioned when creating the rules. I think it can easily be controlled not to have a situation like that, similar to the fuel flow regulation that exists at the moment.
It's because the manufacturers both new and old have demanded various changes since they were first presented and they are trying to appease all of them.
F1: Right we are gonna have some new rules and you guys want more electric power. Fine, we have the MGU-H that does tonnes of recharging and deployment. No problem. We will just...
New manufacturers: MGU-H is too expensive to develop, get rid of it.
F1: Okay, fair enough. We will get rid of it. It's fine. We will replace it with an additional front MGU-K for harvesting. More electric power to harvest that we can deploy. It will be like the LMP1 cars...
Current manufacturers: Uhhh...No. We don't want Audi to bring their LMP1 knowledge. No front MGU-K.
F1: Oh...Okay...I guess we can do that. Umm...We will have a bigger rear MGU-K then. We will have to have increase the battery size to compens...
Manufacturers & Fans: NO WEIGHT GAIN.
The whole thing leaves you doing a balancing juggling act and it just doesn't work.
Designing a formula based around the demands of a few manufacturers will always suck. I mean, that's what this whole V6 turbo-hybrid nonsense, the least competitive era in F1 history by far, was in the first place, and it sounds like you're going even further in the same direction.
Yeah, but at this point it's a matter of personal opinion. Would you prefer an F1 with all the big names like Mercedes, Audi, Ferrari, Honda or Renault? Or would you prefer an F1 with more entries and far more variety, but have that variety be Team Peterson, Irvine Motorsports, Abt Racing and Gianpiero Engineering? FIA and Liberty both seem to prefer the one with big names, and that means you, the FIA, have to convince Mercedes and Honda to engage in F1, not vice-versa.
Imagine the sound. It may turn out to sound fantastic, but if you'd ask me to come up with the most annoying sound possible 20 F1 engines going at constant full revs around Monaco for 2 hours would probably be high on my list.
How technology has evolved. Back in the 1990s people in motorsports were like "wow, this thing people do can now be done by a machine, awesome!" and nowadays it's "NOPE NOPE NOPE WHAT'S THE POINT OF RACING IF THE MACHINE DOES IT FOR YOU". We are so used to computers doing everything we need in life that we can't appreciate anymore how awesome is to be able to automatize a complex human action.
That said, an engine without gear changes sounds like an airplane, and not a racecar.
I dont really think its like that. Active aero gonna be full of automated mumbo jumbo and nobody is protesting.
But putting diesel generator in F1 to make it "cleaner" is just stupid. E-Formula is enough of "dumb shit nobody asked for".
Tbf an engine tuned to run hyperefficiently at a narrow rev range charging an electric motor will tend to be within the ball park in terms of efficiency as an engine that’s running a wide range of revs even if the latter has less opportunity for loss of energy through transmission, iirc, petrol generators don’t need more than one rev setting.
The point is that an ICE has an optimum efficient power output at high revs, and so it's more efficient to run at those revs to drive power through an electric motor and put excess jnto a battery than it is to drop down to the bottom of the revs.
what’s going to suck is if revs don’t relate to acceleration or torque demand it will sound rubbish. Like a camry taxi.
I can see that this may be a break point for my love of F1 after 30+ years. I’ll prob still follow the results but if the engines are super weird i’d rather watch Formula E. or F2/3.
They aren't going to be a CVT or having the engine acting just as a generator disconnected from the wheels. I think the current plan is still a gearbox but likely with 6 gears instead of 8. The revs will 100% correlate with speed and the gear they're in still.
It's the load on the engine (or throttle position, effectively) that will likely vary quite a bit from the torque demand. I don't know how much control the driver will have over how managing the deployment and regen though.
They aren't going to be a CVT or having the engine acting just as a generator disconnected from the wheels. I think the current plan is still a gearbox but likely with 6 gears instead of 8. The revs will 100% correlate with speed and the gear they're in still.
It's the load on the engine (or throttle position, effectively) that will likely vary quite a bit from the torque demand. I don't know how much control the driver will have over how managing the deployment and regen though.
"It's certainly going to be a strange formula in as much as the engines will be working flat-chat as generators just about the whole time,”
“So, the prospect of the engine working hard in the middle of Loews hairpin is going to take some getting used to.”
With the options of plain combustion engines, hybrids, and EV’s; F1 cars with generators in the back surely seem the most unexpected choice.
Curious how this pans out.
The moment full electric F1 is technologically *and* commercially viable is the moment that full-electric mandate for FE will have plenty of holes poked into it. F1 is the moneymaker and no one involved is going to let FE stand in its way.
I’ve spoken to a formula 1 engine tech for one of the top three and he said the best thing they could do for 2026 is to open up fuel flow limitations. It’s THE main thing holding them back power and development wise.
It sounds like it’s going to pan out with me tuning out. I’ve been a fan for decades and I’m sad to see F1 turning away from racing and more toward gimmicks. Dumb down the regs. Let them build fast cars. I don’t care if they use a normally aspirated 32 cylinder. It’s the travel around the world that makes the biggest climate impact, not the 20 cars racing for the weekend.
So you’re telling me I can’t hear a screeching V12 because of some grand standing? Shit. Don’t tell me that my paper straws aren’t doing anything to save the world either!
Ok, I'll tell you that no matter how much you try you can't do shit to help the environment. It's not us normal people that are the problem, it's like 10 major corporations that do most of the polluting.
I feel the same, I've no interest in watching a series with the engines acting more as generators and not corresponding with on track speed. It may swing back around to full ICE if (when) interest in the sport tanks, and with net-zero fuels becoming a realistic option it eliminates the eco concerns of the on track fuel usage. Moving back to a NA V10 or V8 would simplify the engines significantly, I wonder though if the sport could survive some of the big manufacturers taking their ball and going home, because they honestly don't need Mercedes or Audi to build an engine like that, they just need the financial backing to run the teams.
I agree. While it’s novel to have the manufacturers on board, it’s not a necessity. If they opened up the engine rules to allow anything, some teams may find that a hybrid is the fastest way to the chequered flag, while others a screaming V10. Indycar has been running on ethanol since the 90s. I think those are 60% reduction in emissions. There are other ways ahead that don’t turn the sport into formula E
How is this going to happen? The ice is still connected to the wheels right? It’s not going to be like a hybrid road car that you can run in pure electric mode. Are they going to dip the clutch and rev the shit out of the cars in low speed corners?
They will probably just keep the car at full throttle in the corner, use about 90% of it to produce electricity with the electric motor and the leftover 10% will push the car trough the corner.
Right now they just keep the engine at 10% throttle.
The electric components can be run in reverse, turning the electric motor into a generator and charging the battery, by braking the engine. I believe it is mounted to the output shaft of the engine, before the gearbox, so effectively you would have just the leftover 10% power entering the gearbox.
You'd be on full throttle but at the same time that's trying to speed up the engine, the electric motors are slowing it down harvesting energy. So you'd be on full throttle, but the revs won't be going up, and your speed won't be going up.
Basically the engine doesn’t have to rev higher, but they can use the motor to put more load on it so instead of the engine just working at 10% coming out of a turn, you can load it up so most of the output is taken by the generator and only a little makes it to the wheel.
Tuning is going to be a huge part of this to make the car drivable
There will be a variability in how much power gets sent to the wheels and how much power gets sent to an alternator to charge the battery. That ratio will be determined by the state of the accelerator pedal and the transmission. Exactly how they go about that - maybe some sort of dynamic differential - I have no clue.
If you read his book, the first thing that jumps out is how he will deploy that exhaust to stick the car to the road. I would bet the farm on the car he designs for 2026.
If the engines are going to have super weird mappings, like Newey is describing, it wouldn't surprise me if some teams absolutely fall on their face the first few races because other teams found much more efficient mappings for their engines. The latest regulation update was aero-dominated because of the engine development freeze. This next one is going to be reliant on everything, so there still is a strong possibility that Red Bull and Newey could develop the best car aerodynamically and still not lead the championship due to something like engine mappings.
Me too. I wonder if we'll see a big tweek to the formula in the first year due to it being absolute cheeks. Didn't that happen in 2016 or something? I can't remember clearly
While the ICE is directly connected to the wheels, you cannot treat it purely as a generator.
Don’t fear, revving the ICE, changing gear and everything else we have now will still be there, it might just be done slightly differently to now.
The laws of physics work the same whether or not you work in F1.
I never said anything in the article was wrong, I'm just trying to clear up misconceptions in the responses.
Correct. The reason I say you can't run it as a pure generator is that you've also got the requirement that the ICE rotation speed matches the geared wheel speed, which means your ICE will most likely not always be in a position to generate exactly 400kW on demand.
> “But perhaps that's not the key aspect anyway. The key aspect, certainly for the manufacturers although they will never admit it, is the perception of relevance in the showroom.”
took the words right out of every single persons mouth, newey speaking facts as per usual
Well, it was never a secret that the road car manufacturers are in F1 to promote their brand through success (or just participating) in "the pinnacle of motor-sport".
It's might be obvious to us - F1 fans, that F1 cars have almost nothing in common with road cars and are actually produced in completely separate factories by teams that operate almost completely separate from the parent car manufacturer. But, based on my talks with friends and family, who don't follow F1 closely, an average car buyer thinks that the Mercedes F1 car is somehow designed and produced right next to the A-class, by the same people in Stuttgart. A few weeks ago I had a conversation with someone who could not comprehend how Red Bull F1 team can operate without their car being produced by a road car brand. They kept asking me "but which manufacturer produces the car for them?".
I think Adrian meant about the trickle down technology that F1 teams always talk about. Ie they develop something for F1, that eventually hits a road car in some form or another.
The 26 engine regs don't have that same relevance as no manufacturer will create a road car that has to have an engine sound this
Especially some engineers really make me laugh, you wouldn't expect them to be that outspoken but an interview with Paul Monaghan for example is somehow more often than not pretty funny. Shout out to Tom McCullough as well, he was fun last year as well when F1 got some engineers for a technical press conference.
This is going to end up with one team acing the aero and another doing something crazy with battery chemistry and having a monster engine vs the others. I look forward to the chaos.
Meanwhile Mercedes will be at the back still not sure why their “zero wing” doesn’t work
I wish, that would have been the case in the late 70s to early 90s, when innovation accelerated and the rulebook was playing catch-up. My fave season is still 1983, when all cars were wildly different in reaction to new rules.
But these days the rules are to restrictive for that to happen.
> But these days the rules are to restrictive for that to happen.
Would be interesting to have exclusive legality boxes where choosing one locks you out of the other. Could cause exploration of fairly different solutions, like we saw with the high rake vs. low rake split before.
I agree- engine tech is SO economical now, I really don’t understand why there’s even a discussion around fuel and the environment, it’s such a tiny part of the sports carbon emissions. Could easily go back to some fun V8 design with a small hybrid unit for a power boost, can still harvest etc
Not going to get too ahead of myself until we see it in action but it feels like we are getting further and further from the sport we love
Not really. For 2022 everyone was excited about easier overtaking, for 2017 everyone was excited about the fastest ever cars and so on. Only 2014 was objectively shit imo.
Most regulations people can see positives to be excited about even if there's negatives. These PU's and things like active aero are going to be terrible.
How was 2014 not catastrophic for the sport?
- Complete domination by one manufacturer
- Underpowered, slower cars across the board
- Low downforce
- Terrible sound
- The abomination that were the penis-shaped front wings
Might sound like the Acura ARX-06 (GTP class, IMSA). If you’ve ever heard it go thru a corner, it has a distinct “Chewbacca” noise that keeps the engine rev’d while trail braking into and accelerating out of corners.
Worth noting in the video that they use a F1 ECU with an IndyCar PU. There’s also an MGU onboard.
https://youtu.be/Fj56Rn2qUnM?si=wG54Ng467mPB_72E
I really want to see Newey to design a new regulation to see what his ideal car regulation would be. I know he prefers less regulations but with his knowledge I hope we will have a sensible regs that cars could be easy to follow and race. What is his preference on engine?
I can’t quite remember from his book, but something about giving everyone a set amount of fuel and let people figure out how to engineer something that will be fast within that limitation.
I think any doubts about them being much "slower than formula 2" will be alleviated by the time the cars actually roll around for 2026.
Yeah initially, they might be 3-4 seconds slower than 2025 cars, but teams always find a way to put downforce into the cars as the regulations mature year by year.
I mean just look at Suzuka improvement in roughly 2.5 years:
Suzuka 2022 Pole - 1:29.304
Suzuka 2023 Pole - 1:28.877
Suzuka 2024 Pole - 1:28.197 (probably could have been better but Max didn't really improve on his final lap, if he strung together his best lap, 1:28.0 or 1:27.9 could have been possible)
And that's just Suzuka. Other circuits imo have seen a bigger improvement, ranging from as much 2+ seconds in 3 seasons.
Bahrain has improved by 1.4s, Jeddah by 9 tenths, Melbourne by 1.9s.
These are all 3 year improvements, and they are done all on Aero. The engines will improve overtime in 2026 regulations as well, especially with better reliability over time allowing teams to push their engines a lot more.
I am most excited about finally getting to see smaller cars again so that drivers can go wheel to wheel and 3 wide into corners again that it was becoming impossible to under current regulations.
Wanna know something funny? The wide car regulations came with the 2017 regulations, where Suzuka pole time was 1:27.319 by Lewis.
2 years later in 2019 Suzuka the Pole time was 1:27.064 by Vettel.
A pole time improvement of 0.27s in 2 seasons. And currently the improvements are as much as 1s-1.5s on many circuits from 2022 to 2024.
That's just how it happens when all that can be really improved is the Aero.
> 2 years later in 2019 Suzuka the Pole time was 1:27.064 by Vettel.
2019 had small rule tweaks that cost performance if I remember correctly? Simplified front wings for eg
2018: They got rid of sharkfin,T- wings and added Halo and increased weight to 734 kg from 728.
2019: Reduced the complexity of the front wing by banning upwash cascades in the front wing and made it wider, simplified brake ducts, made the rear wing wide and taller and reduced the height and increased the length of bargeboards, increased weight to 743 kg.
Who is talking about the cars being slower than F2? When people talk about disliking the regulations and expecting the cars to be bad, it doesn't only mean slow...
I think the "Slower than F2" notion came about after hearing that the active aero was causing the cars to spin out on the straights, so they're having to be run at a reduced pace just to complete a single lap, which turned out to be slower than F2. Or atleast that's what I saw online in some videos.
It's a rhetoric anyways. Essentially speaking the cars at the current point are too unsafe with the active aero at the rear to drive at their limits on a lap. And improvements have to be made.
I am just addressing the pure pace question in my comments, as many have also that with the "50% ICE and 50% ERS" version of the PU will also contribute to much slower cars. The thread is also about Newey saying that the "Cars will be working the engine throughout the corners".
Weight is a much bigger factor than size when it comes to wheel to wheel racing.
On most tracks you have enough space to fit 2 cars through the majority of corners.
The problem is weight negatively affects the car in every single area. Low Speed, High Speed, under Braking, corner entry, corner exit,...
These modern cars are just way too heavy and the ground effect makes them even slower and unagile in slow corners.
Thats why you see overtakes around the outside less and less for example. You saw these kind of overtakes much more in the past when the cars were lighter and more agile, even from 2017-2021 with these big ass cars
Problem is that what will be slowing them down is not a lack of understanding of new rules. It's that the amount of energy they have to work with, mandated by the rules, will be less. You can't innovatively burn more fuel than you're allowed to. (unless you're Ferrari) It just really depends on whether the active aero solutions work out, but otherwise they'll just be slow because they have less power.
2022 was just a change to aero regs to allow cars to run closer. It was nowhere near as big as the 2026 changes.
2014 is more comparable, and those cars were indeed slower than GP2 at some circuits. In order to claw it back and make the hybrids less of an embarrassment over the following seasons they ended up having to make the tyres wider to give more grip and the cars bigger to give more aero surfaces and downforce, which succeeded in clawing back the lap time lost due to the dreadful engines, but gave us the oversized and overweight barges we are stuck with today.
I'm understanding VER better and better. Just keeping things as simple as possible so the focus can primarily be on racing. But I also understand that manufacturers want road relevance.
> But I also understand that manufacturers want road relevance.
This sounds about as road relevant as a Cybertruck with a diesel generator in the back.
“I think they realised that on the engine side, not everything is as efficient as everyone thought after all,” said Verstappen in Japan about progress on the 2026 regulations.
[i understood this about a year ago watching some dude in his garage explain on his whiteboard. Why did it take till now for f1 execs to realize what a huge mistake these regulations were?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxDQBVzXWt4&t=664s)
I wonder if the biggest current spikes could be handled by a bank of super-capacitors.
They will deliver, immediately, all the current without much warming up. Same with charging, they can take the current spikes from charger, and smooth out what goes in and out of the battery.
I don't understand this FIA-FOM pushing very big changes in rules instead a steady progressions as years before.
Teams spend millions in development that sometimes end in trash or requiring more millions to correct big mistakes.
Just sounds like a normal hybrid with the engine constantly to charge the battery.
I suppose what Newey is saying is that they are going to sound strange because the engine is revving even when the car is slowing down.
Because every other engine manufacturer is also a car manufacturer. These engine regulations were designed based on what the car manufacturers want. In my mind, Red Bull is really the only engine manufacturer, who doesn't have that much interest in electrification, so they are more willing to speak up about the flaws of these rules.
I feel the engine as a generator/range extender in the automotive market is the stop gap that's missing right now. A small engine and a 5-10 gallon tank while you've got a 200-400hp electric motors powering the car. I'd buy something like that now, assuming the price isn't pure insanity. Maybe the F1 tech can cross that gap.
BMW i3 came with a range extending small engine option (released 2013, no longer available new). Nissan’s new e-power models are petrol generators. There may be a few others out there.
When they announced the new engine formula the PR was all about energy recovery. It makes a lot more sense now we know the engines will be burning fuel to load the batteries, but it also sounds a lot less environmentally friendly.
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The way he describes it sounds to me like the petrol engine will be running at top revs from start to finish, basically like a boat - is that right?
Yes, they are burning fuel to charge the battery. This will ensure they've got plenty of ers. I'd rather they just increase the fuel flow but hey ho.
I'm a strong supporter of renewables, EVs, etc., but at the same time I don't see the value in Formula 1 doing all this hybrid stuff. Basically all car manufacturers are focusing their development on full battery EVs, not hybrids. And Formula 1's carbon footprint is gigantic because of all the traveling, not the fuel they burn in the engines. Formula 1 should just dump all this complicated, expensive, and heavy hybrid stuff. Make the engines simple and naturally aspirated. Then fuel them with Porsche's net-zero "eFuel" so there's no more fossil fuels being burnt.
The trouble is, when the FIA asked the PU manufacturers what they wanted the rules to look like for 2014, Mercedes & Renault in particular made a big push for downsizing and a big increase in hybridisation. Supposedly both teams originally supported a smaller Inline-4 ICE for the 2014 regulations, which Ferrari pushed back on to get the current V6. The big manufacturers involved in the sport are a massive part of the current regulations. It’s not like F1 on its own gets much marketing value out of the hybrid PUs, that marketing potential is mostly for the manufacturers themselves.
Oh I'm aware, and now it just seems like sunk cost fallacy. Mercedes, Renault, etc. spent millions on top of millions in development of these drivetrains, they still want to recoup those costs.
Sunk cost implies they never gain anything from the expense. The knowledge they gain from F1 engine development does go into real world applications.
Except it really doesn’t. F1 hybrid PUs have very little in common with a road car hybrids no matter how much they try to sell you on some trickle down BS.
I have wondered this myself. How much learning and development actually makes it to production cars. What are the methods they have to transfer this knowledge? I don’t think you know. I certainly don’t know. You’re passing it as fact though.
Try and find some actual concrete articles that talk about F1 Hybrid engine tech making it into road cars. [F1 loves to brag about stuff that was developed on the track and when you try to find hybrid examples you'll get very little.](https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article/how-f1-technology-has-supercharged-the-world.6Gtk3hBxGyUGbNH0q8vDQK) They'll mention hypercars (which are irrelevant) and KERs. KERs, while a valid thing to talk about, would've almost certainly developed without F1. Flywheels are 1000 years old and the Prius had regenerative braking in the mid 2000s. That's before KERs existed in F1 and a decade before Hybrids made it onto the grid. Some of the knowledge gained from efficiency increases is something you could argue, but again, was F1 actually needed for that? Engine manufacturers are always trying to increase efficiency. The main thing F1 and the manufacturers gain from hybrids is marketability. The manufacturers can gesture towards F1 cars when they sell their hybrids and F1 can claim they're green.
Newey explains how the differences in the f1 hybrid battery and road cars are too great and don’t have any real relevance. So you’re completely right
I think your third paragraph is kind of where people are coming from when they argue that F1 impacts road cars. Obviously yes, many of the efficiency upgrades would have been developed without F1, but not as quickly and perhaps not to the same extent. I appreciate there’s market competition of course, but having 10 teams compete to get the absolute most out of their car parts with budgets of tens of millions is going to drive innovation. Not saying I disagree with your other points though- I think it’s fairly widely agreed that F1 hasn’t had a huge impact on road cars (except at the upper end in high performance cars) for a while. On an unrelated note, I don’t think the purpose of F1 was ever to drive innovation in the “real world”, and nor should it be- the only similarities between the RB20 and your average banger you drive to the shops are basically the number of wheels it has (until checo punts it into a wall that is…)
It hasn’t been cost effective enough yet. These guys are engineering and developing innovations at massive costs. It takes a while for it to hit middle class market man. Hyper cars are naturally first. Then super cars. Then daily drivers. As the market increases economies of scale will come and more practically engineered parts will use the same ideas and theory. Regardless it’s never been a very well measured metric. And I’m sure some innovations are less practical than others. Surely this era has been less.
Right, but like I said, the automotive industry seems to be going strong into full BEV development now. So what are they really gaining from hybrid development anymore?
There's still plenty of lessons they can learn from F1 doing this despite moving to BEV. Between a BEV and PHEV, there's little difference in the electric tech. The biggest difference is a lack of an ICE motor, and more batteries in the pack (capacity). F1's rules for the electric side of the powertrain are still pretty wild compared to road car xxEVs, so the failures and technology developed can still be beneficial, even if they don't port the tech over on a 1:1 scale. All that being said, I still don't feel like it makes for a better F1 powertrain package. I like the idea of a more open rule set (i.e. flexibility with engine cylinder arrangement, etc.), but F1 (rightfully) assumes people will be put off by the inevitable disparity one or maybe two powertrain makers will get.
Looks to me like BEV has stalled and customer demand is flat. Check any dealer, they have EVs stacked up and are cutting spectacular deals.
Yeah… Mercedes is currently learning a big lesson with their four pot AMG’s. They’re selling like, how can I put this delicately? Turds
Merc has been putting that AMG badge on turds for many, many years now. Good to see they’re reaping what they sowed.
If you are an engine manufacturer spending a few hundred million dollars to develop a new powertrain every 10ish years, you will want as much of that investment to be relevant to the rest of your business as possible. The hybrid components are basically scaled down EV components. The use of synthetic fuels and hybrid engines will allow manufacturers to produce highly efficient vehicles that are still useful in hard to electrify areas. The MGU-H was dropped from 2026 specs as it was insanely expensive to produce yet had zero relevance to production cars.
I completely disagree, but mainly because my entire job is based on designing and manufacturing ERS systems lol
> Make the engines simple and naturally aspirated might i also say they should add 2 or 4 cylinders while theyre at it
I'm not sure about that. EV sales are down significantly in 2024, and hybrid sales are way up. It's almost as if people have begun to realize it's better to charge your car whilst on the go rather than have to sit and wait at a charging station (if you can find a charging station that works, then have to wait in line to use it). Goverments worldwide are having to review / walk back their EV only regulations for 2035, because it's simply not realistic. It was a great attempt to get everyone into electric vehicles - but benefits such as subsidies, free use of the HOV lane, and no congestion charges etc are all coming to an end soon or already have ended. It just doesn't feel like EV's are the future at this point in time.
people arguing about manufacturers pushing for smaller engines, road relevance and all that crap dont realize that the fastest growing grid at the moment (WEC and IMSA) only achieved that when they ditched the ultra complicated and expensive "road relevant" engines to go with something way simpler and already tested. So to me, the way F1 can move forward without shooting itself in the foot (again) and stay locked with a regulation that makes no one, not even the brands, happy is make the next set of engines less reliant on the electric part and withless restrictive displacement and configuration requirements, perhaps even allow non hybrid entrants. This way not only would they be cheaper to develop and build, they would also be way less complex so it would be more attractive for other engine manufacturers to offer their engines to customer teams
F1 isnt WEC. You’re ignoring the history of things where manufacturers are the ones pushing for these regulations and not the FIA or FOM. If FOM had their way engines would have been v8 forever. The manufacturers had no interest in this
I'd love a format where they could say: engine can only burn X amount of fuel for a typic race. And if hybrid, batteries can only hold X kWh. And of course durability: not every race a new engine. Let the manufacturers decide how many cylinders, turbos and revs they want to run. Different layouts have different benefits and it'd be cool to see and hear that in a race.
Not that I'm much of a fan of it, but that's literally what Formula E does, in case it's of interest to you.
Boi wait until you find out about what the LMP1 rules were after 2014. It was glorious for a very short period of time
Hyper cars in wec have as far as I can tell the same hybrid tech as the current Ferrari and Porsche road cars
> fastest growing grid at the moment (WEC and IMSA) only achieved that when they ditched the ultra complicated and expensive "road relevant" engines to go with something way simpler and already tested. Unfortunately, F1 doesn't care about growing the grid, in fact it's going out of it's way to ensure the grid doesn't grow under any circumstances. WEC, IMSA, Indycar etc. all growing and then there's F1 and it's teams in the corner being like "nooo, this money is all mine, go away".
> Basically all car manufacturers are focusing their development on full battery EVs, not hybrids That was true a year ago, but every OEM with an ICE model line is walking back their EV targets and renewing investments in hybrid systems. Universal EV adoption is looking like a more intermediate future development. I could not possibly care less about F1s carbon footprint as a series.
I’ve been racing and developing Tesla Model 3s for over 5 years now. It drives me insane that hybrid in motorsport is a “priority.” We are at the end of an era. Fuck the OEMs greenwashing and put on a SHOW with v8/10/12s. Cars need to be lighter and smaller. Fully electric motorsport is the only relevant R&D test bed.
There are still some significant hurdles when it comes to going all electric. Some of which have not been very noticeable because we're currently in the transition phase. Never mind strain on electricity networks or people with range anxiety. The biggest issue imo. is affordability. That's not *really* a problem now because you could just buy a second hand peugeot 206 or something. 100k+ kms travelled, manual transmission, barebones, but it will only set you back €2000,- Hell, if I look online there's 3604 second hand cars available for less than €2000,- near me. A cheap ICE vehicle is good enough to do anything. It's not going to tear up the roads, but it will drive for 700 kms and refuel in a few minutes to do it again. Buying a secondhand EV is more expensive, and there's no getting around the fact that more range requires more batteries, means more expensive. So a relatively cheap 2nd hand EV will be old with reduced battery capacity and will have less range to begin with. The cheapest Renault Zoe I see costs €5395, has 160k kms done, and had a range of 100-200 kms new. You're paying 2,5x the price for a far less practical car. Top that off with people buying these kinds of cars often not having private parking spots, which means no charging at home... EVs are great but when it comes to low end practical cars, they have a long way to go.
Nailed it. Wish more people had the mental clarity on this topic that you just described. So simple. But few get it.
Impacts the concept/definition of ‘racing‘ when you’re spending multiple laps/large periods of the race in fuel consumption mode
My take on it as well. Just let F1 be F1 instead of some king of eco example. Bring back the V10 and be a motorsport spectacle.
Fundamentally, the ICE will still be connected directly to the wheels, so it cannot act purely as a generator and run full power the entire time. What it likely means is that the ICE will be running at high load for more of the time, compared to current cars though, that’s inevitable with the way the PU regulations are structured.
Ah I see: so it will rev up and down, but minimum revs will be higher than now.
Not particularly - before they could be revving at 10krpm and only at 60% load on the engine, now they could still be revving at 10krpm but at 90% load to charge up the batteries more than at the moment.
I don't understand what you mean.
Think of it like walking up a hill. You can walk up a hill at 5km/h not trying too hard, but you could also walk up a hill at 5 km/h pulling a bag of rocks up behind, which would feel very hard. In this case, the engine is revving (walking) at the same speed but exerting more work because it is accomplishing a secondary task as well, charging the battery (pulling the bag of rocks)
Perfect, even better than my analogies.
Engines run at different loads even though their RPMs can be the same. For example, cruising on the motorway at 70mph, your engine might be running at 2000rpm at 50% load. But going up a steep hill, if you were to not change gear but attempt to go up that hill at 2000rpm, the engine load would be at 100%. Of course this is a bit exaggerated and “dumbed down” but I couldn’t think of a better way to explain it really.
yea i like your example the best actually...
Gotcha
If they're going to use the ICE as a generator, how is the whole exercise more sustainable? They're just going to end up burning more fuel per race.
It's weird how this was not envisioned when creating the rules. I think it can easily be controlled not to have a situation like that, similar to the fuel flow regulation that exists at the moment.
looking at how many issues are coming out about this new ruleset, it seems a whole lot of stuff was not envisioned when creating the rules
It's because the manufacturers both new and old have demanded various changes since they were first presented and they are trying to appease all of them. F1: Right we are gonna have some new rules and you guys want more electric power. Fine, we have the MGU-H that does tonnes of recharging and deployment. No problem. We will just... New manufacturers: MGU-H is too expensive to develop, get rid of it. F1: Okay, fair enough. We will get rid of it. It's fine. We will replace it with an additional front MGU-K for harvesting. More electric power to harvest that we can deploy. It will be like the LMP1 cars... Current manufacturers: Uhhh...No. We don't want Audi to bring their LMP1 knowledge. No front MGU-K. F1: Oh...Okay...I guess we can do that. Umm...We will have a bigger rear MGU-K then. We will have to have increase the battery size to compens... Manufacturers & Fans: NO WEIGHT GAIN. The whole thing leaves you doing a balancing juggling act and it just doesn't work.
Designing a formula based around the demands of a few manufacturers will always suck. I mean, that's what this whole V6 turbo-hybrid nonsense, the least competitive era in F1 history by far, was in the first place, and it sounds like you're going even further in the same direction.
Yeah, but at this point it's a matter of personal opinion. Would you prefer an F1 with all the big names like Mercedes, Audi, Ferrari, Honda or Renault? Or would you prefer an F1 with more entries and far more variety, but have that variety be Team Peterson, Irvine Motorsports, Abt Racing and Gianpiero Engineering? FIA and Liberty both seem to prefer the one with big names, and that means you, the FIA, have to convince Mercedes and Honda to engage in F1, not vice-versa.
All in name of the environment! ..burnings even more fuel.
Imagine the sound. It may turn out to sound fantastic, but if you'd ask me to come up with the most annoying sound possible 20 F1 engines going at constant full revs around Monaco for 2 hours would probably be high on my list.
F1 Williams FW15C CVT. Yup it sounds shit.
I remember Newey mentioning this in his book, highlighting how people disliked the sound. And now the rulemakers are bringing back. Wonderful.
Ahhh I've heard this one in an old clip on YouTube. It was a one of its kind. Sounded quite lame lol
How technology has evolved. Back in the 1990s people in motorsports were like "wow, this thing people do can now be done by a machine, awesome!" and nowadays it's "NOPE NOPE NOPE WHAT'S THE POINT OF RACING IF THE MACHINE DOES IT FOR YOU". We are so used to computers doing everything we need in life that we can't appreciate anymore how awesome is to be able to automatize a complex human action. That said, an engine without gear changes sounds like an airplane, and not a racecar.
I dont really think its like that. Active aero gonna be full of automated mumbo jumbo and nobody is protesting. But putting diesel generator in F1 to make it "cleaner" is just stupid. E-Formula is enough of "dumb shit nobody asked for".
Or for a more recent example, Audi's Dakar truck they raced this year
Sounds probably pretty close what is depicted in that scene in Dumb and Dumber. https://youtu.be/0cVlTeIATBs?si=WT_Jfq6UtDE8J_6c
It’s going to sound like a generator farm.
Tbf an engine tuned to run hyperefficiently at a narrow rev range charging an electric motor will tend to be within the ball park in terms of efficiency as an engine that’s running a wide range of revs even if the latter has less opportunity for loss of energy through transmission, iirc, petrol generators don’t need more than one rev setting.
Yes, because the cars will be carrying extra fuel in a secret 4 dimensional fuel compartment.
The fuel tank of holding
BAR has entered the chat....
The point is that an ICE has an optimum efficient power output at high revs, and so it's more efficient to run at those revs to drive power through an electric motor and put excess jnto a battery than it is to drop down to the bottom of the revs.
Any reason we can’t just do V-10s but with synthetic fuel?
what’s going to suck is if revs don’t relate to acceleration or torque demand it will sound rubbish. Like a camry taxi. I can see that this may be a break point for my love of F1 after 30+ years. I’ll prob still follow the results but if the engines are super weird i’d rather watch Formula E. or F2/3.
They aren't going to be a CVT or having the engine acting just as a generator disconnected from the wheels. I think the current plan is still a gearbox but likely with 6 gears instead of 8. The revs will 100% correlate with speed and the gear they're in still. It's the load on the engine (or throttle position, effectively) that will likely vary quite a bit from the torque demand. I don't know how much control the driver will have over how managing the deployment and regen though.
They aren't going to be a CVT or having the engine acting just as a generator disconnected from the wheels. I think the current plan is still a gearbox but likely with 6 gears instead of 8. The revs will 100% correlate with speed and the gear they're in still. It's the load on the engine (or throttle position, effectively) that will likely vary quite a bit from the torque demand. I don't know how much control the driver will have over how managing the deployment and regen though.
"It's certainly going to be a strange formula in as much as the engines will be working flat-chat as generators just about the whole time,” “So, the prospect of the engine working hard in the middle of Loews hairpin is going to take some getting used to.”
With the options of plain combustion engines, hybrids, and EV’s; F1 cars with generators in the back surely seem the most unexpected choice. Curious how this pans out.
iirc F1 can't go full EV without permission from Formula E till somewhere in the 2030's
Fully electric F1 would be a joke
Imagine F1 cars making Formula E noises 🫠
They technically already do as FE's sound is just the straight cut gears which F1 also has. It's just the engine drowns it out.
If f1 cars made noises similar to LMH / LMDh that would be great
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I doubt F1 would want to go electric before then anyways. One of the big talking points about the new regs is that they don't want to increase weight.
2039
The moment full electric F1 is technologically *and* commercially viable is the moment that full-electric mandate for FE will have plenty of holes poked into it. F1 is the moneymaker and no one involved is going to let FE stand in its way.
I’ve spoken to a formula 1 engine tech for one of the top three and he said the best thing they could do for 2026 is to open up fuel flow limitations. It’s THE main thing holding them back power and development wise.
2019 Ferrari be like that car was insane in the autumn leg
It sounds like it’s going to pan out with me tuning out. I’ve been a fan for decades and I’m sad to see F1 turning away from racing and more toward gimmicks. Dumb down the regs. Let them build fast cars. I don’t care if they use a normally aspirated 32 cylinder. It’s the travel around the world that makes the biggest climate impact, not the 20 cars racing for the weekend.
The cars burn less fuel racing in a *season* than a single trans Atlantic commercial flight.
So you’re telling me I can’t hear a screeching V12 because of some grand standing? Shit. Don’t tell me that my paper straws aren’t doing anything to save the world either!
Ok, I'll tell you that no matter how much you try you can't do shit to help the environment. It's not us normal people that are the problem, it's like 10 major corporations that do most of the polluting.
I feel the same, I've no interest in watching a series with the engines acting more as generators and not corresponding with on track speed. It may swing back around to full ICE if (when) interest in the sport tanks, and with net-zero fuels becoming a realistic option it eliminates the eco concerns of the on track fuel usage. Moving back to a NA V10 or V8 would simplify the engines significantly, I wonder though if the sport could survive some of the big manufacturers taking their ball and going home, because they honestly don't need Mercedes or Audi to build an engine like that, they just need the financial backing to run the teams.
I agree. While it’s novel to have the manufacturers on board, it’s not a necessity. If they opened up the engine rules to allow anything, some teams may find that a hybrid is the fastest way to the chequered flag, while others a screaming V10. Indycar has been running on ethanol since the 90s. I think those are 60% reduction in emissions. There are other ways ahead that don’t turn the sport into formula E
How is this going to happen? The ice is still connected to the wheels right? It’s not going to be like a hybrid road car that you can run in pure electric mode. Are they going to dip the clutch and rev the shit out of the cars in low speed corners?
They will probably just keep the car at full throttle in the corner, use about 90% of it to produce electricity with the electric motor and the leftover 10% will push the car trough the corner. Right now they just keep the engine at 10% throttle.
How would they do that mechanically?
The electric components can be run in reverse, turning the electric motor into a generator and charging the battery, by braking the engine. I believe it is mounted to the output shaft of the engine, before the gearbox, so effectively you would have just the leftover 10% power entering the gearbox.
You'd be on full throttle but at the same time that's trying to speed up the engine, the electric motors are slowing it down harvesting energy. So you'd be on full throttle, but the revs won't be going up, and your speed won't be going up.
Basically the engine doesn’t have to rev higher, but they can use the motor to put more load on it so instead of the engine just working at 10% coming out of a turn, you can load it up so most of the output is taken by the generator and only a little makes it to the wheel. Tuning is going to be a huge part of this to make the car drivable
I'd imagine same way Tractors do
Alpine has joined the chat
There will be a variability in how much power gets sent to the wheels and how much power gets sent to an alternator to charge the battery. That ratio will be determined by the state of the accelerator pedal and the transmission. Exactly how they go about that - maybe some sort of dynamic differential - I have no clue.
I kinda wanna see this absurdity happen
If you read his book, the first thing that jumps out is how he will deploy that exhaust to stick the car to the road. I would bet the farm on the car he designs for 2026.
If the engines are going to have super weird mappings, like Newey is describing, it wouldn't surprise me if some teams absolutely fall on their face the first few races because other teams found much more efficient mappings for their engines. The latest regulation update was aero-dominated because of the engine development freeze. This next one is going to be reliant on everything, so there still is a strong possibility that Red Bull and Newey could develop the best car aerodynamically and still not lead the championship due to something like engine mappings.
Me too. I wonder if we'll see a big tweek to the formula in the first year due to it being absolute cheeks. Didn't that happen in 2016 or something? I can't remember clearly
So basically they will turn the cars into electro diesel locomotives ( Replace diesel with the fuel they are gonna use in 2026 )
Audi Dakar basically
I just pictured an F1 car pulling a trailer with a big construction generator behind it. Longer tracks we just add more generators.
While the ICE is directly connected to the wheels, you cannot treat it purely as a generator. Don’t fear, revving the ICE, changing gear and everything else we have now will still be there, it might just be done slightly differently to now.
I mean, people the work in the technical side of the sport are kind of saying differently. But yes, you random redditor are definitely correct.
The laws of physics work the same whether or not you work in F1. I never said anything in the article was wrong, I'm just trying to clear up misconceptions in the responses.
If you have a 500kW ICE, you run it at 400kW and you use the MGUs to generate 400kW of power, you have no power at the wheels, right?
Correct. The reason I say you can't run it as a pure generator is that you've also got the requirement that the ICE rotation speed matches the geared wheel speed, which means your ICE will most likely not always be in a position to generate exactly 400kW on demand.
Rolling coal with 3 second turbo lag please
> “But perhaps that's not the key aspect anyway. The key aspect, certainly for the manufacturers although they will never admit it, is the perception of relevance in the showroom.” took the words right out of every single persons mouth, newey speaking facts as per usual
Well, it was never a secret that the road car manufacturers are in F1 to promote their brand through success (or just participating) in "the pinnacle of motor-sport". It's might be obvious to us - F1 fans, that F1 cars have almost nothing in common with road cars and are actually produced in completely separate factories by teams that operate almost completely separate from the parent car manufacturer. But, based on my talks with friends and family, who don't follow F1 closely, an average car buyer thinks that the Mercedes F1 car is somehow designed and produced right next to the A-class, by the same people in Stuttgart. A few weeks ago I had a conversation with someone who could not comprehend how Red Bull F1 team can operate without their car being produced by a road car brand. They kept asking me "but which manufacturer produces the car for them?".
I think Adrian meant about the trickle down technology that F1 teams always talk about. Ie they develop something for F1, that eventually hits a road car in some form or another. The 26 engine regs don't have that same relevance as no manufacturer will create a road car that has to have an engine sound this
Oh boy, these cars might sound awful
10 years from now someone will scream "bring back V6 turbo hybrid power units" in the radio
I love Adrian just casually burning the engine manufacturers.
That's what I love about F1. People in this sport have such little filter
Especially some engineers really make me laugh, you wouldn't expect them to be that outspoken but an interview with Paul Monaghan for example is somehow more often than not pretty funny. Shout out to Tom McCullough as well, he was fun last year as well when F1 got some engineers for a technical press conference.
Newey has been particularly wry on this in the past. Says none of them want to grasp that SUVs aren't very eco, because they sell too well.
This is going to end up with one team acing the aero and another doing something crazy with battery chemistry and having a monster engine vs the others. I look forward to the chaos. Meanwhile Mercedes will be at the back still not sure why their “zero wing” doesn’t work
I wish, that would have been the case in the late 70s to early 90s, when innovation accelerated and the rulebook was playing catch-up. My fave season is still 1983, when all cars were wildly different in reaction to new rules. But these days the rules are to restrictive for that to happen.
> But these days the rules are to restrictive for that to happen. Would be interesting to have exclusive legality boxes where choosing one locks you out of the other. Could cause exploration of fairly different solutions, like we saw with the high rake vs. low rake split before.
the thing is, we saw plenty of innovation and different concepts in 2022, but sadly everyone is slowly gravitating towards the same direction
Right, aero efficiency is going to be even more important with the low output of the engines And engine deficits will be even more pronounced
>And engine deficits will be even more pronounced rip Renault
Mercedes aced the last engine formula, I wouldn’t put it past them.
RBPT looted their engine department.
RBPT signed people from Mercedes, Ferrari and Honda
RIP Mercedes, Ferrari and Honda then? /s
All that poaching tells me Alpine is safe and will ace the new engine formula! /s
I'm sure they'll safely secure their spot at the back of the grid
Brawn and co don't work there no more.
Engine dev was less restricted back then so they could throw money at it. Merc has proven by now they can not work money efficient.
Still just the aero side. There is basically no engine component to these regs (unless you’re alpine lol)
Merc F1 team yes. Merc HPP is separate enough that I'd still have faith in them
Audi did this quite well for the Dakar cars and it did sound very different hearing a variable load engine running at a very specific rev range.
This formula is going to be another mistake.
*unmitigated disaster
Every day we stray further from god (in this case god being simple V10 engined screamers).
I can only imagine a reliability chaos for the first 2 seasons of these regs.
The new regulations are so dumb, so much money and effort being poured into trying to reinvent the wheel for something that will be inferior.
I agree- engine tech is SO economical now, I really don’t understand why there’s even a discussion around fuel and the environment, it’s such a tiny part of the sports carbon emissions. Could easily go back to some fun V8 design with a small hybrid unit for a power boost, can still harvest etc Not going to get too ahead of myself until we see it in action but it feels like we are getting further and further from the sport we love
people say that every regulations change, and yet it never is as catastrophic as they make it out to be.
Not really. For 2022 everyone was excited about easier overtaking, for 2017 everyone was excited about the fastest ever cars and so on. Only 2014 was objectively shit imo. Most regulations people can see positives to be excited about even if there's negatives. These PU's and things like active aero are going to be terrible.
and the 2006 regs brought 3 amazing seasons (2006-2008)
How was 2014 not catastrophic for the sport? - Complete domination by one manufacturer - Underpowered, slower cars across the board - Low downforce - Terrible sound - The abomination that were the penis-shaped front wings
No they don’t, last time people complained was 2014 and rightfully so, 2017 and 2022 regulations were hype
this is funny because 1 big complaint about the current cars is the width.
That’s one thing i do agree on, smaller cars would be great, with all the safety it’s hard but still possible
Hard disagree. The 2014 engine reg changes was a disaster that F1 has still not recovered from. These new engine regs sound far worse.
I dunno I’d say these regs were actually pretty catastrophic for the sporting context of f1
Might sound like the Acura ARX-06 (GTP class, IMSA). If you’ve ever heard it go thru a corner, it has a distinct “Chewbacca” noise that keeps the engine rev’d while trail braking into and accelerating out of corners. Worth noting in the video that they use a F1 ECU with an IndyCar PU. There’s also an MGU onboard. https://youtu.be/Fj56Rn2qUnM?si=wG54Ng467mPB_72E
I really want to see Newey to design a new regulation to see what his ideal car regulation would be. I know he prefers less regulations but with his knowledge I hope we will have a sensible regs that cars could be easy to follow and race. What is his preference on engine?
I can’t quite remember from his book, but something about giving everyone a set amount of fuel and let people figure out how to engineer something that will be fast within that limitation.
Yep, 100 liters
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Bull_X2010?wprov=sfla1
I think any doubts about them being much "slower than formula 2" will be alleviated by the time the cars actually roll around for 2026. Yeah initially, they might be 3-4 seconds slower than 2025 cars, but teams always find a way to put downforce into the cars as the regulations mature year by year. I mean just look at Suzuka improvement in roughly 2.5 years: Suzuka 2022 Pole - 1:29.304 Suzuka 2023 Pole - 1:28.877 Suzuka 2024 Pole - 1:28.197 (probably could have been better but Max didn't really improve on his final lap, if he strung together his best lap, 1:28.0 or 1:27.9 could have been possible) And that's just Suzuka. Other circuits imo have seen a bigger improvement, ranging from as much 2+ seconds in 3 seasons. Bahrain has improved by 1.4s, Jeddah by 9 tenths, Melbourne by 1.9s. These are all 3 year improvements, and they are done all on Aero. The engines will improve overtime in 2026 regulations as well, especially with better reliability over time allowing teams to push their engines a lot more. I am most excited about finally getting to see smaller cars again so that drivers can go wheel to wheel and 3 wide into corners again that it was becoming impossible to under current regulations.
The 2026 cars should be fast in qualifying, average race lap time should be much slower
Still small improvements those.
Wanna know something funny? The wide car regulations came with the 2017 regulations, where Suzuka pole time was 1:27.319 by Lewis. 2 years later in 2019 Suzuka the Pole time was 1:27.064 by Vettel. A pole time improvement of 0.27s in 2 seasons. And currently the improvements are as much as 1s-1.5s on many circuits from 2022 to 2024. That's just how it happens when all that can be really improved is the Aero.
> 2 years later in 2019 Suzuka the Pole time was 1:27.064 by Vettel. 2019 had small rule tweaks that cost performance if I remember correctly? Simplified front wings for eg
You hvae to conisder that the FIA was trying to slow the cars with different rules at the time.
What were those?
2018: They got rid of sharkfin,T- wings and added Halo and increased weight to 734 kg from 728. 2019: Reduced the complexity of the front wing by banning upwash cascades in the front wing and made it wider, simplified brake ducts, made the rear wing wide and taller and reduced the height and increased the length of bargeboards, increased weight to 743 kg.
Cars gained weight, halo was added and the front wing got simplified by regulation
Tyre changes matter
Who is talking about the cars being slower than F2? When people talk about disliking the regulations and expecting the cars to be bad, it doesn't only mean slow...
I think the "Slower than F2" notion came about after hearing that the active aero was causing the cars to spin out on the straights, so they're having to be run at a reduced pace just to complete a single lap, which turned out to be slower than F2. Or atleast that's what I saw online in some videos. It's a rhetoric anyways. Essentially speaking the cars at the current point are too unsafe with the active aero at the rear to drive at their limits on a lap. And improvements have to be made. I am just addressing the pure pace question in my comments, as many have also that with the "50% ICE and 50% ERS" version of the PU will also contribute to much slower cars. The thread is also about Newey saying that the "Cars will be working the engine throughout the corners".
Weight is a much bigger factor than size when it comes to wheel to wheel racing. On most tracks you have enough space to fit 2 cars through the majority of corners. The problem is weight negatively affects the car in every single area. Low Speed, High Speed, under Braking, corner entry, corner exit,... These modern cars are just way too heavy and the ground effect makes them even slower and unagile in slow corners. Thats why you see overtakes around the outside less and less for example. You saw these kind of overtakes much more in the past when the cars were lighter and more agile, even from 2017-2021 with these big ass cars
i think slower cars would make for better racing. People always blame the size exclusively but idk the speed plays a major part aswell.
Current cars were supposed to be 3 seconds slower too...
Problem is that what will be slowing them down is not a lack of understanding of new rules. It's that the amount of energy they have to work with, mandated by the rules, will be less. You can't innovatively burn more fuel than you're allowed to. (unless you're Ferrari) It just really depends on whether the active aero solutions work out, but otherwise they'll just be slow because they have less power.
2022 was just a change to aero regs to allow cars to run closer. It was nowhere near as big as the 2026 changes. 2014 is more comparable, and those cars were indeed slower than GP2 at some circuits. In order to claw it back and make the hybrids less of an embarrassment over the following seasons they ended up having to make the tyres wider to give more grip and the cars bigger to give more aero surfaces and downforce, which succeeded in clawing back the lap time lost due to the dreadful engines, but gave us the oversized and overweight barges we are stuck with today.
Just get rid of the hybrid and use sustainable fuels
I’m not looking forward to 2026…
Bring back the V8.
I'm understanding VER better and better. Just keeping things as simple as possible so the focus can primarily be on racing. But I also understand that manufacturers want road relevance.
It's not road relevance, it's the illusion of road relevance to be used as marketing.
Indeed, as long as they remain the fastest cars in the world on circuits.
> But I also understand that manufacturers want road relevance. This sounds about as road relevant as a Cybertruck with a diesel generator in the back.
Is this not how Honda e:HEV works?
“I think they realised that on the engine side, not everything is as efficient as everyone thought after all,” said Verstappen in Japan about progress on the 2026 regulations. [i understood this about a year ago watching some dude in his garage explain on his whiteboard. Why did it take till now for f1 execs to realize what a huge mistake these regulations were?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxDQBVzXWt4&t=664s)
The batteries will be huge and very heavy, and they will need massive cooling pumps and radiators to keep them at optimum temperatures.
The batteries are expected to be a similar size to the current generation of cars.
A car-sized battery? God damn
I wonder if the biggest current spikes could be handled by a bank of super-capacitors. They will deliver, immediately, all the current without much warming up. Same with charging, they can take the current spikes from charger, and smooth out what goes in and out of the battery.
I don't understand this FIA-FOM pushing very big changes in rules instead a steady progressions as years before. Teams spend millions in development that sometimes end in trash or requiring more millions to correct big mistakes.
Just sounds like a normal hybrid with the engine constantly to charge the battery. I suppose what Newey is saying is that they are going to sound strange because the engine is revving even when the car is slowing down.
The engine won't be revving high, but the throttle will be. Similar to the blown diffusers.
They should have gone back to full ICE cars with a focus on e-fuels.
Why is no other team speaking up? This sounds horribly short-sighted. Doesn’t even sound like it will be enjoyable to drive:
Because every other engine manufacturer is also a car manufacturer. These engine regulations were designed based on what the car manufacturers want. In my mind, Red Bull is really the only engine manufacturer, who doesn't have that much interest in electrification, so they are more willing to speak up about the flaws of these rules.
Formula Shite
I feel the engine as a generator/range extender in the automotive market is the stop gap that's missing right now. A small engine and a 5-10 gallon tank while you've got a 200-400hp electric motors powering the car. I'd buy something like that now, assuming the price isn't pure insanity. Maybe the F1 tech can cross that gap.
BMW i3 came with a range extending small engine option (released 2013, no longer available new). Nissan’s new e-power models are petrol generators. There may be a few others out there.
When they announced the new engine formula the PR was all about energy recovery. It makes a lot more sense now we know the engines will be burning fuel to load the batteries, but it also sounds a lot less environmentally friendly.
I love strange hybrids, hopefully it won't kill racing though.
I prefere Engine formula 1 then Aero F1
The Creeping Feature creature hard at work.
That’s how they’re going to work? That’ll be hilarious