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Early access: Why F1 is suddenly worried about its 2026 engine revolution [ad-free video]
Added 2025-04-01 12:52:54 +0000 UTCFormula 1’s all-new turbo hybrid cars from 2026 are still nearly a year out from having their first race, but grand prix chiefs appear ready to consign the new rules era to history before it even starts. Talks are ramping up behind the scenes between the FIA and F1’s manufacturers to discuss a complete change of direction with engines - with a return to V10s now being considered.
Comments
the point on Mercedes not being able to roll back to produce enough engines for itself and customers should the 2026 regs be scraped is an interesting one and leaves me with a question. how does engine production work in this stage of a rule set? have manufacturers produced all the engines for this year in advance and ended production? Or is production still on going just at reduced capacity? Also, how long can an engine sit after being manufactured and still be put in a car on race weekend?
Tyrese Peoples
2025-04-02 01:13:47 +0000 UTCThis problem seemed fairly obvious from the day the 2026 rules were written? It’s basic physics that if 50% of the ‘power’ is coming from the electric motor, how is the ICE (the other 50%) going to create enough power to recharge the battery and also directly power the car? Plus less energy is recovered because of the removal of the MGU-H. It never really added up. Entropy is a thing, discovered when modelling the efficiency of steam engines in the 1800s. We’ve known about it for a while. I don’t understand how thousands of engineers could have all disregarded this issue. I’m very puzzled about how we ended up here so late in the process.
Olly Wright
2025-04-01 21:42:37 +0000 UTCYep the 2026 rules look terrible
Joe
2025-04-01 18:56:41 +0000 UTCDo you really believe that it would be feasible? It's just a distraction from MBS until the next election...
André Pereira
2025-04-01 15:17:11 +0000 UTCLet's get V10 in for 2026🤩🤩😍😍
URBAN MOTO-BIKE
2025-04-01 14:59:30 +0000 UTCFascinating turn of events. It seemed like the V10 chat started to pick up more last year. It was causing me to wonder at the very most we could get louder and smaller cars sometime in the early 2030s, MAYBE. I certainly wasn't expecting a full u-turn on everything within half that time!
Zach Buchowski
2025-04-01 14:11:18 +0000 UTCWell this is wild. What was the point of years of expensive hybrids, then?? It feels like the whole f1 grid has just of gone "well we don't really need to do this lol"
Alex Bentley
2025-04-01 13:59:13 +0000 UTCI'm really concerned by these plans. Not because I don't like V10s (you may recall my name as a regular questioner on the podcast), but because F1 has a history of doing things on a whim and then being unsuccessful because they've addressed a symptom not the root cause. The V10 era (89-05) was brilliant. But not universally so. There were plenty of dull races. We only remember the exciting ones because no one's going to do a highlights package on a shit race. It wasn't just because of the engines either. It was loads of things - 97 was great because the only true great driver wasn't in the best car. Teams and drivers made errors because a lot of the science and engineering wasn't as well understood as it is today. And that's not as simple as saying "ban simulations and CFD" - once you've understood something, you cannot unlearn it. Imagine a situation where a team that's doing well today suddenly gets saddled with a crap engine in 2026. It's not too difficult to imagine them blaming the regressive step back to V10s and hybrids are the future. There will be nonsense about "going back 20 years isn't in the DNA of F1". Their fans will then say "bring back turbo hybrids" and we'll be in the same mess as before. A big, noisy engine is great. But great racing needs more than that. There were great races before 1989 and plenty after 2005. And, if they do bring back V10s, Glenn is going to be as unbearable as Edd was in his 93 victory speech. We're going to have to rely on Ben and Matt for sanity, and that's a scary world.
Simon Emms
2025-04-01 13:46:20 +0000 UTCWell isn't this a fine mess. It's way too late to cancel the new engines, best they can do is get them into engine freeze as soon after 2026 as possible then think about dates for dropping them.
Mark Hewitt
2025-04-01 13:26:30 +0000 UTCI don't want to see v10s come back just because the bring back v10s podcast will need a new name Bring back turbo hybrid power units ?
Ben K
2025-04-01 13:21:38 +0000 UTCI've long been a proponent of simplifying F1 engines for the very reason you point out. Simpler engines will be cheaper to build, and thus encourage independent manufacturers back into the sport like Cosworth. I've never bought the excuse manufacturers use about F1 technology correlating with road car technology. The duty cycles of F1 power units are completely different to road cars, though I'm not denying there is SOME F1 technology that is beneficial to road car development. I don't think it's a good direction for F1 to be pandering to the whims of auto manufacturers. We've seen before that when the going gets tough, they pull out. Aside from bankruptcy, when was the last time an independent team pulled out of F1?
Cardiff Giant
2025-04-01 13:20:39 +0000 UTCif you ever look at the comments on any F1 Official Youtube video of when they do throw back stuff like today with "15 laps of Kimi Raikkonen's Unforgettable Drive" the top comments are almost always "we miss V10 screams" "Bring back the V10!" "That scream is why I love F1, we need it back" Those are almost always the top liked comments. The video of Lewis giving an interview while Fernando drove his V10 F1 car around years ago is another example. WE WANT V10's.
Jose' Cardoso
2025-04-01 13:13:07 +0000 UTC
