The FIA has revealed new images showing how Formula 1 cars could look in 2026, following changes to its planned overhaul of the regulations.
With teams able to start work on the 2026 chassis from the first day of next month, the FIA is finalising the details of its first change to both the power unit and chassis regulations since 2014.F1 teams raised several concerns over the original draft of the chassis regulations. Following further consultations with the FIA, changes have been agreed to the rules which permit teams a greater degree of aerodynamic freedom.
Some of the consequences of these changes can be seen in the images issued by the FIA today. Compared to the original renderings presented in June, the latest iteration features more detail on the aerodynamically sensitive front wing endplates, though the main planes appear largely unchanged.
The most significant change appears at the rear wing. Compared to the angular version seen in the original design, the latest version is more similar to that on the current cars. Unlike in the original 2026 design, no DRS actuator is shown, though the new regulations are intended to permit adjustable aerodynamic elements at the front and rear of the car.
While DRS is currently allowed as an overtaking aid only, from 2026 drivers will be allowed to use their adjustable aerodynamics to increase straight-line performance at all times. A new high-performance engine mode called ‘Manual Override’ will be introduced to ensure drivers still receive proximity-based overtaking assistance.
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The FIA’s latest rendering of a possible 2026 car shows a flatter wheel fairing design than that seen on the previous version, which was largely the same as those on current cars.
F1 teams welcomed the FIA’s move to loosen areas of the 2026 regulations. “I think in terms of cornering speed, now in simulations it looks much more convincing that it may still be offering good racing, may still be offering Formula 1 as the pinnacle of motorsport,” said McLaren team principal Andrea Stella at the Brazilian Grand Prix.
“So from this point of view, downforce levels seem to be in a much better place. I think there’s still a few weeks of work. And hopefully this will lead us to the target that will guarantee good racing and good overall speed like we all want to see for a Formula 1 car.”
NB. Some of the renderings appear to be missing a right-hand side suspension element
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Osvaldas31 (@osvaldas31)
12th December 2024, 9:59
Looks more like Formula 2. I really hope it works but these changes were not necessary. Something simpler might have been thought of. And we are going back to narrower cars again with smaller wheels and tyres. It’s like reversing to 2009 all over again. I guess, after 10 years we will be reversing to 2017. Like a seesaw.
Jere (@jerejj)
12th December 2024, 11:38
Unnecessary based on what? The current technical regulations couldn’t remain in place forever in any case.
Ideals (@ideals)
12th December 2024, 11:45
Why couldn’t they, exactly?
notagrumpyfan
12th December 2024, 14:58
Maybe not forever, but for now it would be a good solution.
Jere (@jerejj)
12th December 2024, 19:20
notagrumpyfan Too little, too late.
notagrumpyfan
12th December 2024, 21:45
They’ve done it before!
Never too late.
Osvaldas31 (@osvaldas31)
12th December 2024, 15:06
Why not? I mean, not forever. But why change after only 4 years? There is constant change of regulations, major overhauls every 4-5 years, but I don’t understand what it does good to the sport. Nothing. Just a waste of money.
Alan Dove
12th December 2024, 16:25
F1 survives on stakes. If there is no risk of failure or success, from a technical aspect, over the winter, there’s lower stakes. Changing the regs 4-5 years helps keep technical intrigue high and anticipation. People want high-stakes racing, first and foremost. You’ll see with the level of interaction on this very site during the 2026 reveals and testing how this will bare out.
if people really wanted technical homogeny KZ would have more than 12 spectators.
Coventry Climax
13th December 2024, 10:05
That were true if the FiA did not constantly further restrict the teams room for their own vision, decisions and development.
Convergence is an officially instated religion these days.
Chris Horton
13th December 2024, 10:36
High stakes and technical intrigue are all well and good until the first day of testing and we see a team has a 1 second per lap advantage.
Fer no.65 (@fer-no65)
12th December 2024, 20:28
Based on the simple observation that just 4 years of a set of regulations that took so much effort and work from everyone involved is stupid.
pcxmac (@pcxmac)
12th December 2024, 19:21
they are if you are moving to F1 as an all electric formula. Which most certainly they are trying to do. This has to do with the coming politics and perhaps a move against oil prices in 26.
The ‘sprint’ races are about as long as an electric car will be able to go, in the near future. And the conversion to 50/50 hybrids is just a mile-stepping stone. F1 used to be about innovation, but its becoming cookie cutter and politics in your face. Not really great if you ask me.
Jb
12th December 2024, 21:41
More likely to synthetic fuels,and a hybrid. Not fully electric
Dale
14th December 2024, 12:50
I suggest you look at a 2009 car next to a 2024 car … and check the difference in weight.
The cars have become more like trucks.
About time they get smaller and lighter.
Excess weight = excess ballistic force = more danger. Did you do science at school?
doobnew
12th December 2024, 11:00
It looks far, far better than the initial concepts for the 2022 car. I like the hints of 07/08 but am worried that it’ll still be a bit heavy.
Johns
12th December 2024, 11:09
Got to dump the batteries. One good battery fire in the pits and it will be clear.
notagrumpyfan
12th December 2024, 15:02
Batteries will still be needed; I doubt they’ll go back to flywheel.
Jb
12th December 2024, 21:43
Not Going back to V10s no matter how much you want them to
mark toghill (@mt2201)
12th December 2024, 11:25
to be clear its not smaller wheels it narrower tyres
Wer
12th December 2024, 14:44
Yes. The tyres are narrower, but they are still GIGANTIC in height (i.e. diameter).
Jere (@jerejj)
12th December 2024, 11:38
I don’t remember the DRS actuator being shown even in the original design since DRS was never in the 2026 technical regulation plans in the first place.
Anyway, I’m looking forward to how the manual override mode & active aero will work in practice.
The former will be usable similarly to IndyCar’s push-to-pass & or KERS/ERS.
While active aero will be available for everyone at all times, i.e., also on all (dry green flag) laps in the races like DRS in qualifying, practice, & test sessions, it may still have designated activation zones.
However, as the effectiveness regarding overtaking is irrelevant, those activation zones can cover the entire straight/full-throttle section lengths, & perhaps even be suitable through Monaco’s tunnel, Blanchimont, 130R, etc., in all fuel loads, unlike DRS.
All in all, I’m looking forward to the next technical regulation changes, & hope the racing quality at least won’t get worse.
notagrumpyfan
12th December 2024, 15:09
Active aero has always been part of the new design. This was later specified as active front (wing) aero to increase front downforce in the turns, next to the rear wing flap to make the cars more slippery on the straights.
The latter is needed to (only partly) offset the loss of efficiency by dumping the MGU-H.
PS the MGU-H was dumped supposedly to (also) attract Porsche. Porsche didn’t join but are now using an MGU-H on the new 911 GTS.
Jere (@jerejj)
12th December 2024, 15:41
Valid points
BLS (@brightlampshade)
12th December 2024, 11:51
Given how much the top teams are converging it is gutting that they’re going to throw a spanner into the works for 2026
and I still don’t understand how these new power units are going to work without an MGU-H.
DEfusion (@defusion)
12th December 2024, 11:58
F1 has done this for decades now, stable rules means closer racing. But they keep doing massive rule changes because someone has a head start but then the field catches up but oh no here are the rule changes we made as a knee-jerk reaction. It’s so frustrating.
MarkWebber (@markwebber)
12th December 2024, 16:39
Between 1998 and 2004 there were few changes to the technical regulations, but that didn’t prevent Ferrari from dominating for years. It was a major rule change, the ban on changing tyres during the race, that ended Ferrari’s dominance.
Jere (@jerejj)
12th December 2024, 12:06
@brightlampshade These changes were decided a while ago, so nothing to do with current competitive situation.
Bosco Moroz
12th December 2024, 15:17
Obviously new to F1, this is the way it has always gone. Just as the racing becomes excellent, they change rules and for 2-4 years we get one team chased down. Current cars are from 2022, do we really need another change in 2026, Why couldn’t FIA make it go another 2 years. Heck we were lucky we had any convergence with a 4 year window. At least we got half this year and all of next year… but by race 5; half the field will be focused on 2026 cars. A lame duck year for all but a couple of teams.
If cars converge, the drivers will be seen as much more important and who really can drive. Currently there are just not enough competitive cars for amount of drivers who could produce in a better car.
We could be looking at a 3 more years of guaranteed excellent racing, but that may make the sport grow for the right reasons.
This is not rocket science. It’s the exact same story every few years. F1’s global push about cost and going green could be assisted greatly by expanding the time they race under each regulation set. Save the racing and planet at the same time.
Jere (@jerejj)
12th December 2024, 15:41
Bosco Moroz For your information, I’ve been watching & following F1 since 2004, but other factors are still the actual intentions behind any given technical regulation changes, be that proper hybrid technology introduction in 2014, faster & more aggressive cars in 2017, or more close racing-friendly cars in 2022, etc.
Coventry Climax
13th December 2024, 9:57
Which is exactly NOT what he’s saying.
MichaelN
12th December 2024, 16:23
What’s the issue? Currently, the teams are allowed to charge their capped 4MJ battery with 2MJ/lap from the 120kW MGU-K and an unlimited amount from the MGU-H. But as we’ve seen in the races, this isn’t enough to keep it topped up so they still need ‘charge laps’. Without the MGU-H, in 2026 the teams will still have the 4MJ battery but will be able to charge up to* 9MJ/lap from the larger motor (350kW). To prevent the cars from draining the battery, the output is linearly capped (ignoring the MOM/motor-DRS) relative to speed so they won’t actually be able to use the 350kW at all times.
*Up to because the FIA has said this could be adjusted on some tracks to avoid potentially dangerous lift-and-coasting, namely at Monza. This might get a bit messy, we’ll have to wait and see.
The regulations for 2026 have a pretty good diagram of the energy flow under C5.4.2.
BLS (@brightlampshade)
12th December 2024, 18:00
What’s the issue? I assume that’s rhetorical given you then answered your own question?
They’re removing the MGU-H so that’s going to make the ICE noticeably less efficient, which means they’re going to have to rely on the MGU-K more. Given the amount of drag in these cars (even with this new fangled drs) the amount they recover will be a pittance compared to what they put in.
Somewhere this doesn’t all add up, that or we’re going to have comically slow lap times compared to quali times.
Andy Cowell (of Mercedes PU fame) gave a good interview a few years back on how “under appreciated” the MGU-H is.
MichaelN
12th December 2024, 19:30
It’s not so much rhetorical as an attempt to find out what is causing the apparent confusion about the 2026 PUs.
Removing the MGU-H will indeed make the PU less efficient. That’s certainly true.
But the current 2MJ/lap charge rate limit is just a regulation. It’s not a technical barrier. The PUs will work just fine without the MGU-H, and they’ll be plenty fast especially with the almost tripled MGU-K (120kW to 350kW) and a more than quadrupling of the charge rate (from 2MJ to 9MJ per lap).
The only place where the teams feared drivers would want to lift and coast to charge was a place like Monza, which has a uniquely high full-throttle time/percentage where getting to 9MJ/lap under normal conditions seemed unfeasible. That’s why the regulations were changed to allow the FIA to put in place track-specific charge limits so that drivers would not drive erratically to charge the ES.
Finding the right balance will take some work, to be sure. But it’s also why they put in limits on the MGU-K relative to speed and coupled that with baseline moveable aero to get cars into that output-capped speeds faster. They’re not supposed to use the full 350kW all around the lap, quickly draining the ES along the way.
BLS (@brightlampshade)
12th December 2024, 22:43
You seem to glossing over how these engines manage energy.
They recover a relatively small amount of the energy put in, so energy needs to be externally added, in this case fuel.
They could be allowed to recover an infinite amount per lap but it’s still going to be a pittance compared to what was put in.
The MGU-H recovered an energy that is now entirely wasted. The MGU-H helped make the ICE more efficient, something like adding an extra 200MJ to the system over the course of the race.
F1 is a borderline endurance series. These regs have added electrical dependence whilst also removing the ability to recover from the primary finite resource, the fuel.
The fuel is the only way to add to the system to make up for losses from drag etc.
They’ve taken away a massive part of how that fuel is turned to useable energy.
It’s not the end of the world, but in race trim these power units will be lesser than the 2014 PUs.
nordmann (@nordmann)
12th December 2024, 11:54
Where’s all the stuff that was devised by the “follow more closely” technical group last time? Like the upwash rear wing, the front wheel fairings etc? Why were these discarded?
MichaelN
12th December 2024, 16:26
They don’t work. The Mercedes-FIA collusion on the mid-season 2022 floor TD might as well have been the end of the 2022 spec.
Also, when the FIA gave Liberty and Ross Brawn free reign over the cars, the latter said they would keep working on it to ensure the design goals were met as teams improved their designs. But they haven’t done anything of the sort, and with F1 teams always wanting to pile on more downforce it’s just getting worse and worse.
More downforce is never the answer for better to racing.
Roger Ayles (@roger-ayles)
12th December 2024, 16:49
Some people keep saying that the 2022 regulation change didn’t work but that is completely untrue.
The 2022 regulation change DID work as intended as they allowed cars to be able to run closer together than they had previously been able to and they were also able to do so for longer than the prior generation cars/tires could.
I mean how many times over the past 3 years have we been able to see cars running within 1 second for many laps without having to back off to cool cars/tires? That never would have happened with the Pre-2022 cars as they struggled to run within 2 seconds of each other and when they did they usually had to back off because the tires were starting to overheat/degrade or the car was starting to overheat after a handful of laps.
The primary goal of the 2022 regulations was cars that could follow closer for longer to create closer & more competitive racing and i’d say they achieved that for the most part.
MichaelN
12th December 2024, 19:41
There are many quotes throughout 2023 and 2024 from drivers and team principals who lament the fact that following is becoming harder and harder again. Russell said it very succinctly just last week: “We know in this sport you can’t overtake without DRS.”
Sainz drew a direct comparison last year, saying: “In 99% of the tracks I think we’re going to need DRS, and we’re going to need a powerful DRS, because these cars from the beginning of the year are starting to become a bit like 2021 or 2020 where it is difficult to follow.”
You rightly note that the tyres are a huge part of the problem. But overall, the lofty words of Ross Brawn and his Liberty/FOM working group just haven’t panned out.
Roger Ayles (@roger-ayles)
12th December 2024, 22:26
That the cars may have become harder to follow over time doesn’t mean the regulations failed because again even at the end of this season purely from a viewers perspective it was obvious that they were still able to run closer & put on better racing than was the case with the Pre-22 regulations and certainly better than had the regulations not changed at all.
I’d also disagree with drivers saying they couldn’t overtake without DRS because i’ve never at any point believed that. Yes of course there would be less passing to pad out the stat books but there would still be overtaking and i’d argue that without DRS it would be better overtaking as it would be far more exciting than a DRS push of a button highway pass. And I think we’d also probably see more overtaking & overtaking attempts outside of the usual DRS zones just as we did at Imola when they were late to enable it (When we saw overtaking/attempts into the top chicane & Rivazza) or even at Abu Dhabi that year (Was it 2017 or 18?) where it wasn’t enabled for 20 laps due to a system fault & we saw a few overtakes into the old 5/6 chicane where we’d never usually see any with DRS active.
I know i’m going off on a tangent here but my biggest less talked about gripe with DRS as it’s been used is how it basically puts all the focus onto just the FIA decided passing zones when without DRS the focus in on the whole circuit as while you obviously can’t overtake at every corner you used to see drivers moving around more elsewhere to try & set up overtaking attempts elsewhere. Now it’s just stay in line and wait for the detection point and I will just always hate that aspect of the DRS gimmick.
Should be Quality over quantity as that will always be far more exciting, far more memorable and result in far better racing!!!!
Coventry Climax
13th December 2024, 9:53
Couln’t directly reply to @roger-ayles anymore, but fully agree with what he says, above.
Wer
12th December 2024, 13:38
Oh yeah, clutter the front wing with loads of stupid tiny winglets!! Vomit!!
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
12th December 2024, 13:57
They have now issued some on-track renderings, which have been added above.
lynn-m
12th December 2024, 14:22
it’s a shame they are going back to raised noses as i always thought the low noses they returned to in 2022 looked indefinitely better as they made the front of the car flow much more nicely.
also not keen on the reduced width as i think it makes the car look more boxey, same issue i had when they reduced the width to 1.8m in 1998. always thought the narrower cars looked ugly because it made them look more boxey.
Wer
13th December 2024, 12:57
Yes, brother, YES!
The 180cm narrow cars in 1998-2016 were absolutely unaccaptably ugly.
The current 200cm width should be the minimal ever. Before 1993 they were wider (215cm max.), so 200cm shouldn’t be crosed.
And the saddest thing is that with those huge 72cm tall tyres they have since 2022, the tyre-to-car-width proportions in 2026 will make the cars look narrower than those 180cm narrow cars.
MGus.ai
12th December 2024, 15:21
Did they test the tips of the wings for contact?
They will be incredible flexible – for aero gains – but once they break they will fall immediately ahead of the tyre
MarkWebber (@markwebber)
12th December 2024, 16:42
Weren’t we told that the halo would be better integrated into the car and no longer look like an aftermarket part? They have lied to us once again
Bobby (@shakenbake)
12th December 2024, 17:04
Is it just me or does this look like Alonso’s Renault R23 from 2003, but with a Halo.
Jere (@jerejj)
12th December 2024, 19:22
Just you. I see barely any resemblance.
Coventry Climax
13th December 2024, 9:41
That should probably read: “how the FiA thinks F1 cars should look”.
And they will no doubt keep pushing, with penalties, regulation changes or ‘clarifications’ or technical directives (likely all three combined) to cram their vision (not the teams’) through our throats, claiming the divinity of it.
The latest iteration of hugely damage prone and massively performance affecting front wing endplates, that is.
Might be good, might be not.
Good as in drivers thinking twice before attempting to play bumper carts, bad as in drivers aware of where hitting opponents hurts the easiest, quickest and most effective.
Expect further driver complaints and snitching, and subsequent further driving sterilisation rules.
Which some teams have found prone to porpoising and bouncing more than others, showing inability to fully grasp the fenomenon even after several years, and therefor launched a campaign to prove it dangerous with the FiA in order to have it changed and at least hamper the opposition, which they succeeded in.
Overtaking assistence. Aargghhhhh.
Like in ‘Lane Assist’, ‘Park Assist’, ‘Electronic Stability Control’, onboard coffee machines and entertainment devices.
So, foldable rear seats, roof racks, four doors and a tow hooks will be the next fully pointless for racecars additions?
So, if the fuel engine fails, they still run around on about 50% of the power, right?
Wrong.
Without fuel, there’s no power at all, therefor these cars are 100% fuel powered, just like all previous iterations.
They’re attempting to make the cars more fuel efficient and customise where and when the fuel power is actually applied, but that’s a completely different concept as being 50% electric powered.
Then, consider them using “fully renewable fuel”, which they try to make stink as in “no environmental impact” at all.
If that actually existed, now or in the future, then who cares how much of that stuff their cars actually use?
This is a similar fake bookkeeping trick as in claiming the dome in Vegas is not part of the racing venue’s power consumption.
How about instating a budget cap, and a fuel cap, for F1 itself?
They seem to think it’s a good idea for the teams, so why not for all of F1, including its stakeholders?
No don’t answer that, it’s a rethoric question, with private wallets being the obvious answer.
Mr Ed
13th December 2024, 18:42
2007 called, it wants it’s cars back
Asanator
13th December 2024, 20:42
They look nothing like the 2007 cars apart fromt the swoopy front wing main plane!
SPArtacus
14th December 2024, 3:35
Was their graphics budget $5?
Dan G (@dang)
14th December 2024, 8:35
Has been spelt out anywhere how “fifty percent of power output will come from the electric motor”, when the main source of electrical energy, the MGU-H, has been removed?
Interesting that they will be slower through corners though. The current cars can reach 5.6 G above ~250 km/h. These cars won’t. Drivers might not mind that!