This weekend’s Canadian Grand Prix is not primarily about the emerging driver market or how the weather will affect the ninth race of the Formula One season, particularly because Red Bull is not the clear favorite.
The FIA unveiled the anticipated modifications to the technical regulations for 2026 on Thursday, providing broad explanations of the adjustments along with several renderings of the cars’ future designs as Formula One seeks to develop more powerful batteries and lighter, more agile cars.
The World Motor Sport Council is scheduled to ratify the proposed regulations on June 28. However, the teams have indicated that certain aspects require improvement, and the upcoming weeks will be critical in determining the final details of F1’s upcoming rule cycle.
“It’s imperative that we are still the leading series in motorsport. That’s how I see us, we’re the pinnacle,” Williams team principal James Vowles said. “We need to make sure that we’re maintaining the performance and speed that we have. Right now, there’s a mismatch there, fundamentally.”
“More work needs to be done,” said Haas team principal Ayao Komatsu. “But we need to do it in a collaborative, transparent way to achieve those objectives.”
Why weight and aerodynamics remain big concerns
The F1 paddock has generally thought that the improvements scheduled for 2026 are going in a positive direction. The on-track spectacle could be enhanced by creating cars that are 30 kg (66 lbs) lighter, marginally smaller, and consequently more agile, especially at little street circuits like Monaco where the shortcomings of the present generation of cars are yearly revealed by meaningless races.
On the other hand, teams are becoming less optimistic about the possibility of improving race. The majority ran beyond the 798 kg (1759 lbs) minimum limit in 2022, the first year of the new regulations, and several, like Williams and Alpine, are still having trouble lowering their weight two years later. The producers of power units, who are keen to create more sustainable powertrains, may be pleased with the rise in battery capacity and F1’s increased sustainability; however, since the battery is one of the car’s heaviest components, it will also be difficult to achieve the 30 kg reduction.
“I don’t think anyone will hit that weight target particularly,” said Vowles. “It’s going to be incredibly difficult, and I think that needs reviewing. Because as someone that spends their life going through marginal gains taking weight out of a car, it’s not a fun thing to do.”
The aerodynamic profiles of the cars scheduled for 2026 have undergone a number of modifications, such as a thirty percent decrease in downforce, a fifty-five percent decrease in drag, and the addition of active aerodynamics. However, the initial models of how the cars would really operate present a worrisome image.
McLaren team principal Andrea Stella said the “main gaps” lay in the aerodynamic regulations. “The cars are not fast enough in the corners and too fast in the straights,” he said. “These two aspects need to be rebalanced.”
Additionally, Stella believed that the pitch for a 50/50 split between engine and battery power from the power units needed to be made in a way that reduced the need for the car’s chassis to be sufficiently efficient to support it.“From a power unit point of view, likewise from a chassis point of view, it’s time that all parties understand that they need to contribute to the success of the sport,” Stella said.
Remaining the pinnacle of motorsport
Stella raised certain issues with the current generation of cars’ absolute speed. Even while performance typically declines when new regulations are implemented—as was the case from 2021 to 2022—the decline is never significant enough to cause grave worries about the cars’ speed.
Lewis Hamilton revealed on Thursday that he has chatted with a few drivers who have experienced the 2026 vehicles in the virtual world.“They said it’s pretty slow,” Hamilton said. “So we will see whether it’s actually the right direction or not.”
The worry is that F1 might become overly competitive with lesser classes, including Formula Two, IndyCar, and Super Formula, which it should easily outrun.
“The performance difference to an F2 car could be as small as a few seconds (per lap),” Vowles said. “That’s starting to get a little bit tight, especially when you compare to other series around the world.” In Bahrain, the F1 pole time was 12 seconds quicker than in F2.
Teams are worried that Formula One would not have the same kind of advantage over other categories, and not just because of performance. Under the most recent regulations, F1 moved toward a smaller design window in an effort to lessen the performance disparity across the field. However, Komatsu was unsure if the car’s engineers and designers would be able to continue inventing come 2026.
“In freedom of design, especially on the aerodynamic sense, at the moment in the draft regulations, I’m not sure if that balance is hit right in terms of how things are prescribed,” he said. “This philosophy, how we present ourselves as the pinnacle of motorsport, in terms of engineering as well, to have some freedom or probably a bit more increased freedom of aerodynamics, that’s important as well again.
“So again, (they are) areas I expect we need to look into to make it really representative as the pinnacle of motorsport.”
Are the regulations too complicated?
Nobody would blame you if you looked over the proposed restrictions and felt a little confused.
As Friday’s press conference progressed, Mike Krack of Aston Martin saw how much technical terminology was utilized. Phrases like “Z-modes, X-modes, energy management and so on.” Vowles offered some clarity when discussing if the potential rules are too complex: “I think in terms of the X-Modes, just for clarity, that’s effectively reducing drag in a straight mode, and there’s Z-Mode, which is increasing downforce in the corners.”
However, it is still unclear how the increased complexity can affect the fan base’s growth. F1 has experienced a huge surge in popularity during the COVID-19 worldwide epidemic, partly because of the Netflix series “Drive to Survive.” This implies that there is a greater diversity within the F1 fandom in terms of expertise and other aspects.
F1 is already a complicated sport, with ideas like tire deterioration, drag reduction systems, and differentiating penalties. Somehow, 20 drivers, 10 teams, and thousands of staff manage to put together a grand prix weekend more than 20 times a year while competing on both permanent and temporary tracks across the globe. It is an enormously difficult task.
Do we run the danger of making things even more complicated with these proposed regulations?
“I think some part of the complexity is also in the language than in the substance, because when we talk about the X-Mode, like, it’s the DRS open, potentially even at the front. But the concept of opening DRS is very well established,” Stella said. “And also I think that some of the complexity that is still lingering on, and I think still, especially on the power unit side, is because of the immaturity of the regulations. I think once they mature, they will become even simpler, or at least I would hope that we can achieve both things through the work of development and collaboration.”
Krack cautioned, adding that in these continuing discussions, fans and the product itself need to be taken into account.
“I’m a bit scared that in 2026, we will have driver press conferences or driver interviews speaking about all these technicalities, that a lot of people will not understand and lose interest just because of that,” the Aston Martin team principal said. “That is something that we need to be really careful (of), if we have different energy management from track to track, or constraints on the car that makes one car maybe go to the front, one to the back, and then how to explain this.”
What happens next
Given the disparity between the teams’ intentions and the proposed regulations, it is obvious that important parties must continue to debate the obvious issues prior to the World Motor Sport Council’s vote on June 28. The team leaders who spoke on Friday made it apparent, despite their remarks, that they are not entirely opposed to the concepts put out; rather, they only wish to improve them.
“As for McLaren, we are in agreement, and we support the intent and the objectives at a high level that were stated in the press release,” said Stella. “However, if we look at the regulations in the draft form that has been circulated, they are still far from being able to achieve those agreeable objectives and intent.”
He also emphasized the importance of teamwork, which several other team principals had already mentioned.“It is the time for the FIA, F1 and the teams to work together, listen to one another, and contribute to form a solution that will allow the sport to meet those objectives. I think if we meet those objectives, we’re going to have Formula One in a good shape.”
It is hoped that 2026 would usher in a fantastic new technological era for Formula One (F1), one that will allow for tighter wheel-to-wheel racing and place a larger focus on driver skill. However, the teams see the current approach as a means to an end, not the answer, in achieving that.
“If we work together, and we will do going forward on this one, we can get it to a really good position I think,” said Vowles. “It’s a solid foundation to F1. But we do need to clear up some aspects of it.”
(Top photo of Andrea Stella: Mark Thompson/Getty Images)
