Article by Sergiu Alexandru – published on Thursday, August 14, 2025, 10:57 / Updated Thursday, August 1425 11:02
Season 2026 will mark a new start in Formula 1, with the introduction of completely new technical rules, which will include chassis, aerodynamic and propulsion systems. And one of the heads of the International Automobilism Federation explained what is expected in the new year.
Such a major change in the regulation, especially when involving engines, always creates the possibility of a team or producer to accumulate a considerable advance at the beginning of the cycle. This is exactly how the Mercedes domination period began, with the introduction of turbo-hybrid engines in 2014. The German builder dominated the competition, winning 8 titles in a row.
Now, the new regulation, however, includes a mechanism that will allow the faster recovery of the differences between cars, and Nikolas Tombazis, the FIA monopost racing director, explained the measures that FIA will take to avoid repeating the Mercedes domination.
How will it prevent the repetition of Mercedes domination of 2014
“I do not think we will have a situation in which a producer will have a great advantage as in 2014. We wanted to go further, but we have resisted the additional simplification of the rules.
The engines will be simpler than the current ones, but not as simple as we wanted. They will not have the MGU-H element, and other components have very strict limits, so I don't think the differences will be as big as in 2014. In addition, we also have new producers, such as Audi and the Red Bull-Ford pair, and the introduction of a new regulation always presents the risk of high discrepancies.
We also have the ceiling of the budgets, including for the manufacturers of propulsion systems. For this reason, the regulation includes a concept that allows producers behind to recover. This concept is the result of many efforts and is included in the regulation from the first day. In recent months, his mechanism of operation has become much clearer.
Every 5-6 races, we will calculate the average of the performance of each manufacturer. Those under a certain level will accumulate advantages during the season, depending on how much they are behind. These advantages will be translated into three things: more money for development, more hours for tests and the possibility of a new engine approval.
Thus, those behind will be able to recover. In the first five stages of each season of 2026-2030, we will monitor the performance of each internal combustion engine provided by a manufacturer and a medium power will be calculated. The calculation method can be found in an annex to the Regulation.
Each manufacturer whose engine is over 3% less powerful than the most powerful engine will accumulate additional development points“Tombazis explained.
McLaren dominates this time Formula 1/ Photo: Guliver/ Gettyimages
“The rules are identical to all”
He also spoke about a new provision would exist in the regulation to help teams from a financial point of view.
“With the ceiling of budgets, there is a risk that you can never recover and always stay behind. You would have humiliated throughout the regulation cycle, and we don't want that. We do not think it would be correct and I have to say that the producers are very active in this regard.
There is also an additional initiative, which would come into effect if a manufacturer has major reliability issues at the beginning. Imagine someone's engines explode every weekend. Each engine costs a lot, and the team will use its budget to buy new engines and sacrifice development to stay under the ceiling. Which would be a terrible situation. So, we work in this direction. We still have discussions, but I hope everything will be approved soon.
The idea is that, after using a certain number of engines, each additional engine must not have such a large impact on the budget. Of course, the engines will continue to cost the same, but the damage will be smaller, “said Nikolas Tombazis, quoted by Sportal.bg.
