There’s big trouble in Formula One land as the introduction of the next era of Formula One power units are just over eight months away. As predicted by a number of F1 observers the attempt to make the total output from the electrical side of the hybrid engines equal to that of the combustion engine is causing severe headaches for a number of the manufacturers.
Such is the crisis the FIA president signalled this year he was in favour of a swift return to F1 using V10 combustion engines with Red Bull and Ferrari strongly in favour of such a proposal. Audi responded with a resounding ‘NO’ to these proposals stating the very reason they are building their first F1 power unit is due to the current regulations and their emphasis on electrical output.
Back in the summer of 2023, Christian Horner raised questions over the sense of requiring the new F1 power to be 50% electrical, suggesting at circuits with long straights like Monza, the combustion engine would merely be used for much of the time as a generator of electrical power.
This could see the drivers behaving in a most strange fashion, changing up a gear or two along the straight, to raise the engine revolutions and create more charge for the batteries. Yet the FIA hurried their heads in the sand, only to find out certain manufactures are simulating similar scenarios to those Red Bull highlighted two years ago.
Further, Renault have decided after decades of producing F1 power units, the cost and complexity of the new versions of the V6 hybrids is too expensive and resource hungry so the Renault owned Alpine team will now buy in engines from Mercedes rather than manufacturing their own. This decision was announced almost a year ago, but the ramifications have only now come home to roost with the top dogs in Formula One.
A crisis meeting was held in Bahrain which featured the FIA, F1 and the power unit manufacturers. F1 supremo Stefano Domenicali later indicated one of the power unit producers had proposed retaining the current powertrains for another two seasons, whilst a V8/V10 solution was found.
These are troubled times indeed for the sport which has become utterly dependent on global automakers to deliver the technological prowess required for such complex motors. Independents who build high quality racing engines are now excluded from entering F1 due to the extreme cost required to design and produce the F1 power behemoths.
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Cosworth whose remarkable history in F1 has mostly been forgotten, have recently delivered on a relative shoestring budget what has been described as the ‘greatest V12 ever built.’ The V12 is for the Gordon Murray hypercard, the T.50 was recently seen at the Goodwood members meeting, where spectators were wowed by its power and sound as Dario Franchitti unofficially smashed track’s lap record.
There is huge uncertainty as to where the various F1 2026 power unit manufacturers stand in any pecking order and the probability of another Renault/Honda type ‘fail’ seems high from the conversations taking place. Last week Domenicali expressed in no certain terms there was a need for a catch up process to be allowed, should come the dawn of 2026 one hybrid producer has completely missed the boat.
Conversely he also suggested it would be no good for F1 were one engine producer to ace the new regulations and be far ahead of the rest of the field, as did Mercedes with their massive budget for the 2014 V6 hybrid turbo units. There is genuine confusion amongst the upper echelons of F1, over where the various manufacturers are at with their 2026 power unit programmes, which can only come from information provided by the makers themselves.
One solution emerging from the big pow wow in Bahrain, is that the output from the electrical side of the 2026 power unit be reduced. This would prevent there being a need for wholesale changes in the work the power unit producers have completed to date. Yet introducing this in absolute terms has seen resistance from Mercedes, who believe their programme is on track and are hoping for a repeat of 2014.
Another version of this concept is now being considered, where the electrical output at 50% is retained for qualifying but reduced significantly for the Sprint races and the Grand Prix. Of course the charge required can be delivered in qualifying by means of plugging in the power unit, during the races its dependent on the recovery and generation systems which appear questionable at present.
Toto Wolff has reacted angrily to this latest suggestion as the meeting of the F1 commission looms the coming weekend. “Reading the agenda of the F1 commission is almost as hilarious as reading some of the comments that I see on Twitter on American politics,” Wolff said in the Jeddah paddock.
“I really want to protect ourselves and make no comment – but it’s a joke. A week ago, there’s an engine meeting [on Friday in Bahrain], and [now] things like this end up on the agenda again.”
Interestingly, there is a new common interest being expressed by the players in Formula One, which was not the case even some five year’s ago. Andreas Stella the team boss of McLaren believes the interest of the sport should come ahead of that of any power unit manufacturer, despite his team being a Mercedes engines customer.
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“Well, my opinion is very clear, the principle I want to state very strongly is that it’s the responsibility of all the stakeholders to make sure that the 2026 regulations are successful,” he explained when asked about the next meeting of the F1 commission.
“Because there’s no point in teams competing with each other if we don’t have a good sport, and the quality of the sport, the quality of the spectacle, the quality of the racing is a function of the product from a chassis and power unit point of view.”
Stella details the current issues facing F1 which includes, “overtaking, considering power deployment, considering power harvesting – everything that determines the quality of the product, therefore the spectacle, therefore the health of the business, we should look into that and we shouldn’t say it’s frozen.”
The McLaren boss calls for his colleagues to retain an “open mind” but appears to back the restriction of the electrical power during racing, arguing this allows the manufacturers to continue with their existing programmes without significant changes to the power units architecture.
He says this is the responsibility of all the F1 stakeholders. “When I say ‘the stakeholders’, it’s F1, the FIA and the teams. I think we need to put the common interest before our own.”
Indeed Andreas Stella may have settled the matter in advance of the next meeting of the F1 commission, given McLaren are Mercedes customers and it is their power unit which is rumoured to be the best currently under development. Having been in the title winning wilderness for almost half a decade, clearly winning at all costs is more important for Toto Wolff.
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The roller coaster season start continued for Lando Norris in Saudi Arabia, where the penalty for his crash in the final part of qualifying was to hand the lead of the championship to this fiercest rival, team mate Oscar Piastri. Whilst Piastri was schooled on Saturday by the four times world champion in how to lay down the fastest lap, his cool, calm demeanour under pressure saw him become only the second driver to win the Grand Prix in Jeddah whilst not starting from pole position.
The high speed action along the Red Sea corniche was thrilling to watch, but the race was decided within seconds of the lights going out to signal the start of the race. With the drivers being held for what felt like a split second, Piastri reacted more quickly to the signal to start the race and held a small advantage over Verstappen as the entered the braking zone.
Verstappen veered sharply to the right hand edge of the track to create an angle from which he could attack the corner at a higher speed, but this merely served to allow the McLaren driver the space to move towards the centre of the track rather than remain pinned against the wall on the left hand side….. READ MORE ON THIS STORY
With over 30 years of experience in Formula 1 as an insider journalist, I have built trusted connections across the paddock, from race engineers and mechanics to senior team figures. At The Judge 13, I and a handful of trusted colleagues share exclusive Formula 1 news, expert analysis and behind-the-scenes stories you will not find in mainstream motorsport media.
