Adrian Newey has said the upcoming 2026 Formula 1 regulations are “slightly scary”, but believes the malleability in them will see interesting interpretations from the teams on the grid.
Newey, who began work with Aston Martin two months ago, is primarily working on the Silverstone-based squad’s vision for the 2026 season.
Next year’s campaign will see a plethora of new rules, with aerodynamics, tyres and power units all changing under revamped FIA directives.
In an interview on Aston Martin’s website, Newey said that the new rules will see an interesting beginning as teams will look to gain advantages through how they see them, but will ultimately be mirroring each other.
“My thoughts on the ’26 regulations are similar to what my thoughts were about the big regulation change for 2022: initially thinking the regulations were so prescriptive that there wasn’t much left here [for a designer], but then you start to drill into the detail and realise there’s more flexibility for innovation and different approaches than first meets the eye,” he said.
“We saw that at the start of 2022, with teams taking really quite different directions. Now, of course, four seasons on, they’ve largely converged, but initially that wasn’t the case.
“Variation between teams is great. It’s all a bit boring if the cars look identical and the only way you can tell them apart is the livery.
“I think there’s a high probability that in ’26 we’ll see something similar to ’22. There’s enough flexibility in the regulations, and I’m sure people will come up with different solutions.
“Some of those will be dropped over the first two or three years as teams start to converge.”
The ‘scary’ challenge awaiting Newey in 2026
Newey also conveyed the considerable challenge that the impending regulations will provide, given that aerodynamic and power unit changes happen all at once.
“The other aspect of this is that, for the first time I can remember, we’ve got both the chassis regulations and power unit regulations changing at the same time,” he continued.
“This is… interesting… and slightly scary. Both the new aerodynamic rules and the PU regulations present opportunities.
“I would expect to see a range of aero solutions and there could be variation in PU performance across the grid to begin with – which is what happened when the hybrid regulations first came in, in 2014.”
Newey also said that he has faith in the relationship the team will have with Honda, having worked with them during his time with Red Bull.
“Next year marks the start of our works partnership with Honda. I’ve got a lot of trust in Honda and a huge amount of respect for them, having worked with them before,” he added.
“They took a year out of F1 and so, to some extent, they’re playing catch-up, but they’re a great group of engineers and very much an engineering-led company.”
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