Do the 2026 F1 rule changes need to be scrapped?

The horse has bolted. Deja vu pervades. The cliches amass.

Nothing can stop Formula 1’s latest rules reset coming in 2026. The regulations are defined, and the teams have been producing parts for their initial wind tunnel models for almost a month. There will be quotes galore all year from their bosses insisting next season will be “ours” – that poor performance in the current one therefore doesn’t matter.

The pre-season that follows the one now upon us is going to be even more interesting than normal. And then, the inevitable. One team will emerge comfortably above the rest in the ‘reset’ pecking order. Perhaps there will be a false dawn multi-team scrap early doors – like 2017 or 2022. But this story has played out every time F1 has told it in the modern era.

Only Brawn’s early 2009 domination ultimately prevented Red Bull winning all five seasons of the post-2008 downforce-slashing ruleset. Mercedes took over when the V6 turbo hybrids arrived in 2014, impressively stayed in front during the change to ultra-high-downforce machines three years later, and Red Bull then surged back ahead in 2022.

The powering central thrust of the next rules era was all about the engines and their makers; how F1 and particularly the FIA wanted to attract new OEMs – by dropping the MGU-H element and rebalancing power delivery in favour of electrical deployment. Porsche went begging, but Audi was snared.

F1 has attracted Audi in from 2026, but effectively lost Renault as a power unit supplier

Photo by: Audi

Amid swelling fan interest, even a return to one-team dominance in 2026, after the shock glory of the 2024 twists and the expected repeat in 2025, might be considered more palatable with that in mind. Except Alpine is soon ditching Renault power to become a Mercedes customer; the Red Bull-Ford alliance is mainly about branding; General Motors is entering F1 for its global sales appeal – always boosted by closer competition – not its technology transfer. On that front, the concurrent changes to the 2026 chassis designs are in part coming from the risk that the new engines won’t be able to supply the desired electrical energy boost for entire laps. A “fudge”, as one ultra-successful F1 technical director told this writer after the initial simulations of the new rules were conducted in 2023. But the chance to veer off course had long passed, and at that stage an excellent 2024 season was just a pipedream.

The one good aim of the changes overall is to bring down minimum weight for what are now gargantuan racing beasts. But, with the understandable need to include hefty safety structures while retaining hybrid engine elements, just 30kg off nearly 800 is hardly “nimble”, as the FIA claims.

F1 has always been about innovation. And regularly evolving rules will always be a necessary part of its overly vaunted ‘DNA’. But the current era is going to pass by in a flash, just when its goal of closer racing (OK, not across the entire grid!) and multi-team victory battles has largely been achieved.

I’ll be so happy to be proved wrong about next year. But history is on this argument’s side, and F1 fans don’t deserve to have to go through this tedious “watch this space” cycle as often as they have this past decade

When representatives of one engine supplier were briefing me last season about the potential of their customer squads also succeeding this time around – with a degree of fairness, given that a non-works team has just won the constructors’ championship for the first time in nearly a generation – this implies confidence is already well bred in certain camps.

I’ll be so happy to be proved wrong about next year. But history is on this argument’s side, and F1 fans don’t deserve to have to go through this tedious “watch this space” cycle as often as they have this past decade. But positivity can poke through fear. The potential of synthetic fuel technology means much lighter engines, and car weight may come down significantly in the future. Nimbleness can indeed be better recovered.

Then there’s the potential of the upcoming campaign, in which McLaren, Red Bull, Ferrari and Mercedes are expected to do battle again – a year-long contest for both championships predicted. Given how the 2024 campaign turned out, it’s not for nothing that a repeat or even an improvement on 2021’s narrative is anticipated. And if that does indeed happen, enjoy it while it lasts.

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Will a team dominate in the next era of regulations?

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images