Last Updated on April 8 2026, 9:49 pm
The war in Iran may well hit the owners of Formula One in the pocket hard, but it’s an opportunistic moment for the sport’s regulators to regain control of a runaway beast they have helped to create. Ex-F1 racer and veteran commentator Martin Brundle claims that the current breed of F1 cars are in fact in breach of a fundamental tenet embedded in the FIA’s ow regulations.
F1 engine cycles tend to be 5-7 years in length and sometimes even shorter, however since 2014 the sport retained the basic architecture of the V6 hybrid turbo powertrains for some 12 long years.
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2026 F1 engines – 9 long years in the making
The 2014 V6 hybrids were initially expected to be replaced in 2020, but an FIA working party set up in 2017 to create the new PU regulations became mired in politics and at the mercy of the manufacturers.
Given that Red Bull Racing had almost found themselves in the dire situation where they had no engine supplier, the FIA was desperate to attract more manufacturers to ensure this situation could never arise again. But the lunatics took over the asylum.
Porsche, Audi, Mercedes and Honda were adamant the future of road cars would be hybrid and demanded that F1 reflected this trend to continue is association with road car relevant technology. Yet as the war in Iran has proven, electric is becoming increasingly popular with the highest sales of electric road cars in the UK since the middle east conflict exploded.
As the F1 teams began to simulate the all new engines with their 50/50 split in output between the internal combustion engine and the battery, deep concerns were raised about what Christian Horner described as “Frankenstein monsters.” He claimed the cars would run out of power on certain circuits with long straights and that the internal combustion engine would have to serve merely as a generator of electricity to meet the required 50% output target.
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Battles raged at the engine manufacturers working party, with the likes of Ferrari and Red Bull calling for the percentage off electrical output to be lowered. Yet Audi and Honda in particular dig in their heels. Honda had already threatened to withdraw from the sport which merely added muscle to the status quo.
In the autumn of 2024, F1’s supremo Stefano Domencali had admitted, “these 2026 technical regulations was, at the specific moment the decision was taken, related to a need for [more] manufacturers to be involved in F1, with a different kind of technology that would need to be used. I do believe that is really fundamental and crucial [to understand].”
He went on to suggest the future of F1 should be simpler, and that “sustainable fuel, [and a] V8, I think is great.” He further admitted the new V6 hybrids regulations were a “political decision” and that two years before the introduction of the 2026 PU’s that, “things have developed so quickly that today a decision might be different from two years ago. I am not an engineer, but I must have a vision of what the sport will look like in the future.”
Since the FIA engine working path was set up in 2017, Liberty media acquired the commercial rights to Formula One and its subsequent huge growth in popularity and commercial revenue now means the sport is less reliant on the funding from the engine manufacturers.
F1 cars becoming automated
Both Domenicali and the FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem have called for the next generation of F1 power to be simpler, probably V8 based with the focus on sustainability via bio fuel. Yet for now the drivers and the fans are stuck with the current generation of monsters which veteran F1 driver and commentator Martin Brundle now argues are in fact illegal based on a fundamental tenet of the sports regulations.
Such is the complexity of the energy management of the new hybrid engines, drivers are heavily relying on self learning algorithms in the ‘brain’ of the car to decide on how to most efficiently harvest and deploy the electrical power. Whilst this may be a delight for a genius engineer obsessed with mathematics, the current world champion Lando Norris revealed in Japan the extent to which he is powerless behind the wheel of the 2026 cars.
“I didn’t even want to overtake Lewis, it’s just about when the battery deploys, and I don’t want it to deploy, but I can’t control it,” Norris admitted following the race. “So I overtake him, and then I have no battery, so he just flies past.”
The new hybrids are programmed for the best theoretical lap, but during racing this is creating massive problems for the drivers. Speaking specifically about the Suzuka circuit layout, Norris adds, “the problem is, it deploys into 130R,” one of the highest speed corners on the F1 calendar.
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“I have to lift, otherwise I’ll drive into him, and I’m not allowed to go back on throttle,” added the world champion. “If I go on throttle, my battery deploys, and I don’t want it to deploy because it should have cut. But because you lift and you have to go back on, it redeploys. There’s nothing I can do about it.”
The Sky TV broadcasting team, which airs in several countries with big F1 audiences in Europe, has been making light of the new hybrid power units. Jokes are regularly aired about “grabbing a mushroom” when an overtake is made on track along with numerous other references to Mario Kart racing.
However, finally a senior F1 analyst is raising the alarm bells over the legality of the F1 monsters created. Speaking on this weeks F1 show Martin Brundle made his opinion clear that the current automation on the new V6 hybrid engines is in fact illegal and in breach of a fundamental precept buried in the FGIA regulations.
“Now, there’s a regulation in Formula 1, it’s been around for forever, it’s very simple and far-reaching. The driver must drive the car alone and unaided,” Brundle insists. And article 27.1 of the sporting regulations does indeed mandate that a driver must pilot their vehicle independently, yet the current power units are overriding their input.
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New F1 cars in breach of a fundamental F1 founding regulation
“I think the problem the drivers have got; one thing that really worried me was Lando Norris saying ‘I didn’t want to overtake Lewis Hamilton, but my battery decided it did, and then I had nothing to defend with’,” Brundle added.
“The drivers shouldn’t have any surprises by a self-learning car,” he continued. “They’ve got to get rid of that. I’m sure it’s not the work of a moment, but the power delivery must be proportional to what the drivers are doing with the throttle. That’s the fundamental. It has to be linear. It’s a big issue for the FIA.”
Brundle who attends most Grand Prix in a season was been conspicuous by his absence for the iconic race in Suzuka last time out. His voice will ring alarm bells in the corridors of the Place de Concorde as the FIA finds itself in a bizarre bind of sanctioning breaches in its own founding articles of F1 racing.
There is a huge meeting on Thursday this week, where a big rethink on how to reshape the power delivery of the new 2026 engines will be faced head on. Some have suggested increasing the fuel flow, but this would compromise certain teams car designs wit the need for bigger fuel tanks.
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Others have suggested increasing the maximum rate of harvesting from 250kw to 350kw yet this merely makes the electrification problem even larger. As a wise old head claimed back in 2023, the proportion of electrical power is too large.
Christian Horner claimed a better split between total power output should be 65/35 in favour of the internal combustion engine. This would see the power cut from 350kw to 245kw. But now there are senior paddock individuals who believe even this is not enough.
A cut to around 210kw is on the table, although this would be hugely embarrassing for the manufacturers who have spent hundreds of millions on the new technology, only to see it reduced to something with a bit more battery than was the case back in 2014.
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A.J. Hunt is Senior Editor at TJ13 and a career journalist with experience in both print and digital sports media. Having trained in investigative journalism and contributed to several European sports outlets, Hunt brings rigour and polish to every article. His role is to sharpen analysis, check facts and ensure TJ13’s daily output meets the highest editorial standards.
Not really in practical terms, & instead of planning these technical regulations to please manufacturers, i.e., Audi & Honda, they should’ve just ‘take it or leave it’ & gone away from hybrid dominance for this season, but oh well, for the time being, adjusting the energy harvesting limits for sessions would already improve the overall situation.
Btw, increasing fuel flow wouldn’t require a bigger tank size, given the current size has nothing to do with fuel low, but solely about synthetic fuel making the same race distances possible with less overall use, not to mention the original hybrid era limit was enough for 100 kg being the maximum permitted capacity allowance for a race.
But increasing the fuel flow may compromise the architecture of some manufacturers PU’s. Has to be a non-architecture changes