The FIA and its hopes for a "more exciting" F1 with the 2026 'revolution'
They present the technical innovations of the next cars and how more overtaking is expected
- MARCO CANSECO
- PATRICK SPENCER
- F1.Chiefs heiress Gracie Hunt stole the show with her outfit at the Las Vegas F1 Grand Prix
- F1.Alonso lashes out at Las Vegas GP: "It does not meet F1 standards"
The FIA's director of single-seaters, Nikolas Tombazis, hopes that the new 2026 Formula 1 regulations could offer "more exciting racing" as a result of the various changes the governing body is going to introduce in the new technical regulations
It is true that the cars will be 30 kg lighter (from 798 kg to 768 kg), shorter (not too much) and narrower (something that was appreciated in the presentation of Audi two weeks ago). The big change will be in the approximately 480 hp that will be delivered by the electric part for cars that will be around 1,100 hp of total power.
Apart from the engine configuration with 55/45 between combustion and electric, the big difference is in the double movable aerodynamics, both in the front and rear wings, as well as a variable power delivery on the straight, which increases for the pursuer and decreases for the pursued.
Tombazis, who once spoke of the current regulations that arrived in 2022 with ground effect as a total revolution, speaks again in similar terms for what is to come: "It is clear that with the new regulations it is expected that at the beginning the grid will be a little more dispersed, but from an aerodynamic point of view we expect the cars to be able to follow each other much more closely than now," he said in a statement from the FIA, explaining the changes that are coming.
"The characteristics of the wake that the cars leave behind have improved a lot and we believe we have learned a lot from the 2022 cars to apply many of those learnings to this year's aerodynamic regulations," he adds. The fact that ground effect is reduced and also the immense air now coming out of the rear diffusers, as well as smaller wings, should allow for that much talked about following.
More importance of power than aerodynamics
The next overtaking in the race will come from this difference in power in the cars, as pointed out before, and the Greek FIA engineer corroborates this. "The transition from the use of DRS to energy as a tool to facilitate overtaking is going to change the nature of racing and make it more unpredictable. I think that, along with the aerodynamic changes, will make racing more exciting," he says. One thing is more exciting and another is to take away all the value of the risk and expertise that now entails completing an overtaking, something reserved for the super class.
Verstappen or Alonso are not likely to be very happy with that and with anyone, whatever the level, being able to overtake again and again. That makes almost everyone equal.
"Let me say, first of all, that the 2022 cars started with a significant improvement in the wake characteristics when following other cars. I don't remember the exact figures, but the aerodynamic load loss at 20 metres behind went from around 50% in the previous generation of cars to around 80 or 85% at the beginning in the 2022 cars. And then it gradually decreased during the regulatory cycle to what it is now, which, again, I'm not entirely sure, but we're probably talking more like 70%," he says.
"That's why we see that the cars are fighting each other a little bit more now than in 2022, although it's still better than it was in 2021. We think the start of the new cycle will be more like 90% or something like that. So we think it's going to be better than ever," he said of the loss of load a car will have when approaching its rival, which will be almost all.
It will be necessary to see in the first tests in Barcelona (behind closed doors) if all these hopes are fulfilled or everything will return to converge in something very similar, as Alonso himself already maintains after driving in the simulator.
