Red Bull Racing’s Chief Technical Officer Adrian Newey believes the 2026 Formula 1 regulations will make for a “strange formula” in 2026.
In 2022, the incoming power unit (PU) regulations were defined with an increased effort on hybridisation in the form of a 50/50 power split between the internal combustion components of the PU and the electrical components.
This has prompted the FIA to think hard on how the chassis and aero regulations, which are yet to be finalised, will complement the new PU regulations that have prompted a keen focus on energy conservation.
Newey admits the regulations in 2026 will take some time for engineers, drivers and audiences alike to get their collective heads around.
“It’s certainly going to be a strange formula in as much as the engines will be working flat-chat as generators just about the whole time,” Newey told Autosport.
“So, the prospect of the engine working hard in the middle of Loews hairpin [at Monaco] is going to take some getting used to.”
The engine regulations were defined in order to attract new manufacturers to the sport and there has been success on that front with Audi developing a new engine as it prepares its takeover of Sauber for 2026 whilst Ford and Honda have also elected to return to the sport in an official capacity.
Newey believes it’s “fair” to assume that the 50/50 power split was the will of prospective engine manufacturers in a bid to push for road relevance, saying “even the FIA would acknowledge – that only the engine manufacturers wanted this kind of 50/50 combustion engine with electric,” but argues that the technology required to operates F1’s new PU might not be transferable technology.
“I guess it is what their marketing people said that we should be doing and I understand that: it’s potentially interesting because F1 can be a fast-track developer of technology,” Newey said.
“The problem potentially on the battery and electric side is the cost currently, certainly of electric motors to F1 standard, plus inverters and batteries. It is very high, but perhaps production techniques in the future will help to bring that down.
“The other problem is the battery. What we need, or what the F1 regulations need out of the batteries in terms of power density and energy density, is quite different to what a normal road car needs. And that in itself means that the battery chemistry, and possibly battery construction is different. So, there’s a risk that it won’t be directly road-relevant.
“But perhaps that’s not the key aspect anyway. The key aspect, certainly for the manufacturers although they will never admit it, is the perception of relevance in the showroom.”
Newey’s Red Bull counterpart and Technical Director Pierre Wache has said teams have been left with a difficult task thanks to the PU regulations being defined in advance of the chassis regs, saying the FIA “didn’t think through the full concept” when drawing up plans for the new power units.
There’s talk of movable aero to compensate for the new PUs peculiarities and such “tools and tricks” are not the direction the sport should be heading according to World Champion Max Verstappen.
“I think it’s going to be difficult,” Newey said of the active aero solution.
“It is fair to say that the engine regulations were created and pushed through without very much thought to the chassis side of it, and that is now creating quite large problems in terms of trying to come up with a solution to work with it.
“But I think the one good thing out of that, is that it does promote efficiency. And I think anything that does that, and promotes that, has to be in line with what I said earlier: of trying to use F1 to popularise a trend.”
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