The key ingredients changing as F1's 2026 engine war shapes up

New rules coming for 2026 will mean Formula 1 has its highest quota of engine manufacturers since 2008. But what has changed and what will the key battlegrounds look like?

Engineering

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It was almost a decade ago that Formula 1’s turbo-hybrid era began. The move away from the 2.4-litre atmospheric V8s to the current 1.6-litre V6 turbo engines augmented by electric motors was, in its infancy, not entirely auspicious; complaints over a lack of noise were united with evident gulfs between each powertrain’s performance level. While many still yearn for a return to the ear-splitting V10 era, most have come to tolerate the modern-day soundscape of guttural roars rather than banshee-like screams, while performance levels have converged over the past nine and a bit years.

PLUS: Why F1's hard-to-love turbo-hybrid decade has been so important

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Author Jake Boxall-Legge

Jake studied engineering at university, as his original ambition was to design racing cars. He was bad at that, and thus decided to write about them instead with an equally limited skillset. The above article is a demonstration of that. In his spare time, Jake enjoys people, places, and things.