Last Updated on April 23 2026, 3:07 pm

Just three race weekends into the all new 2026 Formula One regulations and serious talk is in the air over changing the all new hybrid powertrains which are proving to be more than problematic. Such is the complicated nature of the technology developed by the manufacturers, drivers no longer believe their primary focus is to race the F1 cars.

In an astonishing admission, world champion Lando Norris revealed his McLaren MCL40 had taken over control from the driver during the last Grand Prix in Suzuka.  “I didn’t even want to overtake Lewis. It’s just that my battery deploys, I don’t want it to deploy, but I can’t control it. So I overtake him, and then I have no battery left, so he just flies past. This is not racing, this is yo-yoing.” Clearly this is a farcical state of affairs.

This latest generation of F1 engines was pretty much specified by the F1 manufacturers and not the FIA who were under pressure to attract new OEM’s into the sport. Audi, Porsche – who never made it – and Honda were keen to push the limits by deciding the future of autocrat would be an internal engine contributing just 50% of the power and aided by a battery.

 

 

 

FIA tether wild F1 engines with “tweaks”

Further, unlike the majority of road going hybrid cars which derive much of their electrical charge by plugging in, clearly this is not possible during a Grand Prix. So extreme measures for harvesting electrical energy form the cars decelerating had to be conceived. The result, a product many of the drivers and the fans believe is delivering fake racing just like the Mario Kart video game.

Last week a high power meeting was held between the teams, the Fia and F1 to revise the current rules in an effort to reduce “yo-yo” racing and enormous closing speeds which saw Olie Bearman hit the wall in Japan suffering a 50g impact. The result was predictable, a reduction in overall battery contribution per lap from 8MJ to 7MJ and so became the death of the much vaunted 50/50 F1 hybrids after just 3 Grand Prix.

In fact the hybrids were never really 50/50 in terms of their total contribution to the power output given the maximum 350kw from the battery was never permanent across a lap. This was the peak of  of the battery power whilst the internal combustion engine (ICE) was able to produce 350kw all the time.

The new rules will go some way to ensuring the drivers are mostly flat out in qualifying together with ensuring the deployment of the battery was less aggressive and the harvesting time each lap reduced. Yet as the F1 buzz works of 2026 suggests, these were mere “tweaks” and do nothing to solve the fundamental problems of the new F engine designs.

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FIA to lead next F1 engine design

Now it appears the FIA are considering issuing a blueprint this season for the next generation of F1 power units expected no earlier than 2031. However, as TJ13 reported several weeks ago, Cadillac shifted the date from 2028 to 2029 when they were expected to have designed and built one of the current generation of powertrains.

The summation is that Cadillac will in fact never build one of the current hybrid power units, given the extreme cost c.$270m in R&D and initial production. This wold be a total waste of finances, time and effort were the current power units to run until 2031. Then of course the US owned team wold suffer the same complicated implementation issues seen inn particular by Honda.

So for F1 fans there is hope the current hybrid units will be implemented for just three or maybe four seasons before a return to simpler less expensive units which are more relevant to the real world. Word in the paddock is the next generation of F1 power will be V8/V10 based, powered by fully sustainable fuel and a small degree of hybrid power.

Speaking on The Race podcast, F1 supremo Stefano Domenicali confirms next time around things will be very different. “The process will maybe be different, with the FIA presenting a proposition knowing the situation of the [manufacturers] involved in the sport that will consider the situation today is different from five years ago.  I believe that the manufacturers will not anymore be in a position to say that’s the only way to go. That’s the main different topic if you compare it to five years ago.

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F1 boss blames manufacturers

“So in a way, we are in a situation that we are less in a corner, where five years ago we were. That’s why there could be more possibilities to have different options that the FIA can present to the manufacturers, in agreement with us and in agreement with what is the best for F1,” claimed the Italian ex-Ferrari boss.

Domenicali having defended the current power units to the hilt was pressed on why they would not continue for a decade or so with the current hybrids. “No, I tell you why,” he said. ”It’s not a problem of continuity. The cost of the power unit is too high, that is definite. We have the duty to make sure that this business is sustainable, we need to have products that are technologically relevant, and therefore the cost of this is too high.”

He went on to claim the FIA would be addressing the perpetual issue of the truck sized weight and dimensions of the cars. “The only way to reduce it is to reduce the dimension and the weight of the battery, it has to be considered for F1.” So less battery power. This is one back to the future F1 fans will support whole heartedly.

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Next F1 power before 2031?

Without stating clearly the current disastrous hybrid powertrains will be ditched before their proposed 5 year life span, Domenicali hints clearly he hopes this will be the case. “In terms of the technical moment of it, the new moment this could come in could be ’31. But then the discussion will be addressed by the FIA, with the engine manufacturers, to see if the proposition that will be discussed and presented soon could be possible to anticipate, [and] is something that we will discuss this year.”

Whilst that sentence is gobbly-de-gook its internment is clear. The commercial rights owners are particularly concerned this new F1 era of power may in fact be turning fans off and affecting their business model. For the recent Japanese Grand Prix viewing numbers collapsed in a number of European countries – F1’s heartland – with Spain and France seeing a 50% drop in eyeballs form the previous race in Suzuka a year earlier.

In the end, ‘money makes the world go round,’ and it may be this focus rather than the on-track farce that is the force for change F1 desperately needs.

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April 23, 2026 by The Judge