The political shift that will determine F1's next engine formula

Against a background of meetings at various levels to discuss changes to the ruleset implemented just this year, the message from Formula 1's stakeholders is coming through with utmost clarity: there will be no pivot, no revolution, no major shake-up. Just tweaks to a format which, while clearly polarising so far as the fan community is concerned, has been declared broadly satisfactory by those who put on ‘the show' and the broadcasters who pay for it.

That is the top-level message but, in their less guarded moments, senior figures in the F1 paddock will concede the point that the 2026 regulations carry inherent compromise because the base concept – a near-50/50 split of internal combustion to electrical power – is flawed.

In an exclusive interview with Autosport this week, F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali stated that the fundamentals of the next engine formula, due to come into effect in 2031, need to be agreed by the end of this year. The subtext of this - not that he said it explicitly - is that settling early on a technical philosophy with defined, foreseeable, agreed and attainable goals will avoid a repeat of the present state of affairs, where a formula has come into effect while still in the beta testing phase.

So how did we get here? The near-50/50 split was agreed as long ago as August 2022, in a meeting of the FIA's World Motor Sport Council, where it was also agreed that F1 would shift to 100% sustainable fuel and drop the much-disliked MGU-H hybrid element from the power unit package.

When these policies were rubber-stamped, F1's stakeholders were understandably keen to keep the power unit manufacturers engaged – and potentially attract new ones – by following the wider automotive industry's direction of travel. At the time this was very much towards full electrification, given impending legislation against the sale of internal combustion-powered cars in many key markets.

That trajectory has shifted again in the interim, as uptake of electric cars has faltered somewhat in many of those key markets – and in some, become the subject of rather tiresome partisan political debate, covertly underwritten by the oil-production industry via lobby groups.

Switching off

Ford has recently reappeared in F1 on the engine covers of Red Bull's teams.

Photo by: Clive Mason / Getty Images

As a result, many car manufacturers have begun to pivot away from full electrification. Ford, a recent returnee to F1 in partnership with Red Bull Powertrains, is one such.

Market forces change at a much faster pace than the timescales of F1 rulemaking. Trying to march in lockstep with the automotive industry is impossible, even though the manufacturers remain an important part of the sporting and financial ecosystem.

"I think we are in a moment, a unique moment, where we don't have to mix mobility and racing," Domenicali told Autosport. "But of course, racing is done by teams and manufacturers. And therefore, if you look how quickly the landscape of the manufacturers changed after ‘Diesel-gate' [where the VW Group in 2015, followed by other manufacturers, were ‘outed' as fitting devices to cheat emissions tests] – and I was at that time in Audi [as CEO] – is impressive.

"If I connect these two elements that should be kept separate, it is true that at that time there was a clear indication from all the manufacturers that either we go in this direction [electrification] or we will not be interested in any sport.

"And I could be even more direct. If we would have had an independent manufacturer, we could have said, ‘You know what, OK, let's offer a white-label F1/FIA engine to the teams who want to race, let's go for it.

"But we didn't. There was no one at that time [to provide an independent engine]. That's the status of five years ago. Now it's clear that electrification has shifted versus hybridisation. And everyone understands that if sustainable fuel will be there in terms of quantity with the right pricing, it could be the way to be realistically ready to tackle the emission point."

The politics of power

Meet the bosses: Wolfgang Reitzle (Jaguar/Ford), Burkhard Goeschel (BMW), Juergen Hubbert (Mercedes), Paulo Cantarella (Fiat), Patrick Faure (Renault) and Luca di Montezemolo (Ferrari) gather in McLaren's motorhome at the 2002 San Marino GP to discuss their proposed breakaway series, the Grand Prix World Championship.

Photo by: Andreas Rentz/Bongarts/Getty Images

Automotive manufacturers have wielded a disproportionate amount of power in F1 since the category began to spend beyond its means during the late 1990s and early 2000s as tobacco sponsorship was phased out. There was even a brief alliance between Mercedes, Ferrari, BMW, Renault and Ford to set up a breakaway championship in the late 2000s, prompted by a power struggle between them, the FIA, and Formula One Management.

In those days, of course, the FIA under Max Mosley and FOM under Bernie Eccclestone were very much two cheeks of the same posterior. Mosley, with typical patrician hauteur, used to liken the teams and the manufacturers to customers of a restaurant who had developed a belief, because they dined there often, that they somehow had a claim to partial ownership of the enterprise.

Latterly, under the leadership of Jean Todt and Mohammed Ben Sulayem, the governing body maintains a clear separation between itself and the commercial rights holder – sometimes at loggerheads when it steps across the border into commercial matters, but usually maintaining a public face of policy alignment over the best interests of F1 as a sporting category.

In this scenario the automotive manufacturers have continued to enjoy a seat at the table, occasionally even dictating policy. The first hybrid ruleset was agreed during a climate of post-2008 paranoia that more car makers would follow Honda, BMW and Toyota out of the door – Renault, specifically, made it a condition of its continued participation that F1 embraces electrification.

Domenicali's mention of a "white-label F1/FIA engine" is interesting because the FIA had visited this territory before. In November 2008, around two weeks before Honda announced its shock withdrawal from F1, Mosley announced a tender process for a homologated low-cost powertrain.

This writer, freshly arrived on the freelance market owing to the effects on the publishing industry of the global financial crisis, was commissioned by Cosworth's PR agency to write the press materials announcing it and Xtrac as the winners of that tender. It was released on the same day as Honda's announcement, which by then was known by industry insiders to be imminent.

At the time you could almost smell the fear that more manufacturers would join Honda in the rush to the exit. Ultimately the Cosworth/Xtrac powertrain was a flop, chiefly because Mosley's vision of a budget-capped second-tier of competition using this package didn't survive his ousting as president.

The only established team to take the new homologated Cosworth engine in 2010 was Williams. Here Nico Hulkenberg leads Karun Chandhok's moribund HRT F110-02 during the Canadian GP.

Photo by: Glenn Dunbar/Getty Images

"What we have learned as a motorsport is, first of all, not to be anymore in a corner where we need to be so dependent on the manufacturers," Domenicali told Autosport. "Manufacturers are a vital piece of what we are doing. We need to thank them every day and every night because without them it would be impossible.

"But we cannot be anymore in a corner where manufacturers can dictate the pace to the sport. That's a lesson learned that I think will enable us, together with the FIA that is the regulator, to find the right package that allow the two worlds to live, to co-exist, because we want the manufacturers to be in, with no doubt.

"But we cannot be put in a sort of a corner that 'take it or leave it'. That's the thing that we need to do in the next couple of years.

"It's up, of course, to the FIA to propose that, a sort of sustainable fuel for sure at the centre of the future, with a different balance of what could be the electrification in the future with a strong internal combustion engine.

"Because that's motorsport. It will allow to save a lot of kilos, to have pure racing in that respect, in terms of a lighter car, smaller cars that you can really push as much as you can."

Who makes the call?

It's understood that the FIA president is keen to return to natural aspiration

Photo by: Liberty Media

Indubitably lighter is better. The latest cars are a mere 30kg lighter than their predecessors - those which hit the minimum weight, that is - but already look more agile.

Saving weight is likely to involve backing away from the near-50/50 split of electrical power, and perhaps even backing away entirely from turbocharging. Autosport understands Ben Sulayem has assured several leading figures in the racing industry of his determination to return to natural aspiration, albeit with a rechargeable hybrid element.

It's believed this has already been discussed at some level with the manufacturers during talks last year at the Bahrain Grand Prix weekend, where the final decision was to kick that can down the road to avoid overshadowing the implementation of the 2026 regulations.

The challenge facing the commercial rights holder and the governing body is to keep the automotive manufacturers engaged constructively, as valued partners, while not giving them effective power of veto or a mandate to set policy. Those discussions shaping the next ruleset will be informed not just by the controversial start to 2026, but also by Renault's departure as a supplier.

Ford, Audi and Cadillac may have just got on board, but the lesson from history is that F1 needs to insulate itself from the effects of car manufacturers having to react suddenly to changing market conditions or other global events.

"Look what they did at Renault," said Domenicali. "Renault was part of the table in deciding this kind of engine and then they took a decision to leave. That's what I'm saying. We cannot be in a situation where the crisis of the market can bring certain difficult decisions for the manufacturer to give priority to other initiatives.

"Therefore, we have to protect [against] that… We need to know we are living in a world where we cannot take anything for granted. And things can change very quickly. The only thing we need to avoid is to be in a sort of situation where we are naked or surprised… I think the only way to do it is to have a sort of framework of regulation that will allow the manufacturer to be respected and be in.

"But in case they decide this platform is not any more attractive for them because of other reasons, not connected to the motorsport itself, we can react and give possibility to the teams to perform and to the business to be as strong as it is today."

Watch: Autosport's Exclusive Interview with F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali