Enlarge/ F1 has a few more months before it has to finalize the technical regulations for 2026.
Darren Heath/Getty Images
F1 is set to undergo another of its periodic technical rule changes in 2026, undertaken every few years in an effort to keep the racing safe and at least somewhat relevant. The sport is adopting carbon-neutral synthetic fuels and switching to a simplified, if far more powerful, hybrid system, powering cars with much less drag. But early simulation tests have been alarming, with cars that were at times “undriveable,” according to a report in Motorsport.
The FIA, which is in charge of F1’s rules and regulations, wants cars that can race each other closely and entertain an audience, so expect the 2026 cars to generate less aerodynamic downforce, since that is often conducive to processional racing.
Reducing drag is a bigger priority for the FIA, especially since the new hybrid system, which still regenerates energy under braking but no longer also from the engine’s turbocharger, won’t have the energy sufficient to aid the car’s combustion engine throughout the entire lap.
The solution is to evolve the feature currently known as the Drag Reduction System, which has been required on cars since 2011. DRS lowers an element of the rear wing on command, cutting drag to the car. But instead of using it to make overtaking a bit easier, as is the case now, the idea is for the cars to have a low-drag configuration along the straights, then switch into a high downforce configuration for cornering.
But according to Motorsport, when the cars are in their lowest-drag configuration, they become “almost undriveable—with multiple examples of drivers spinning on straights under acceleration or being unable to take the smallest of curves without the rear stepping out.”
The culprit is a huge shift in the car’s center of pressure, which the FIA says is as much as three times greater than the current change in balance when a driver deploys their DRS. There is a solution, though—active front wings to go with the active rear wings, which move in concert to maintain the same balance on the car even as it switches from high downforce to low drag.
Some of you may be asking why, if F1 is supposedly the pinnacle of motorsport, it hasn’t had active front wings all along. But the sport has had a long-held prohibition on active aerodynamic devices—which it even extended to mass dampers—since 1969 (other than when specified by the rules, like DRS, obviously), following a series of crashes shortly after F1 discovered downforce.
It will be hard to spot when the cars are moving, but this year, you’ll find a tree logo on the sidewall. That indicates that the natural rubber that went into making the tire has been certified by the Forest Stewardship Council. Natural rubber makes up about 15 percent of the rubber in an F1 tire, with the rest being synthetic.
According to the FSC, natural rubber is a key driver of deforestry, as well as human rights abuses, particularly among the smallholders who farm 85 percent of the world’s natural rubber. By putting its logo on the tire, the FSC says that Pirelli has met “the world’s most credible standards for sustainable forestry,” protecting both the forests and the forest communities’ rights, including fair wages.
It’s one of a number of steps that Pirelli has put in place to make its F1 program more sustainable.
“I believe that the certification is an important step in this direction because it’s not Pirelli that is certifiying itself; it is a recognized third party that is giving us this certification, from the way in which we collect natural rubber, with respect of biodiversity, respect of the local population, the way we transport or use the natural rubber,” explained Mario Isola, head of Pirelli’s F1 program.
The synthetic rubber—chosen because it allows Pirelli to tune the characteristics it needs for the tires’ performance—is another area of attention. “Our R&D is focused on replacing the current material with more sustainable materials, keeping the same level of performance characteristics of the tire,” Isola told Ars.
Enlarge/ Pirelli technicians work on the tires during practice ahead of the F1 Grand Prix of Saudi Arabia at Jeddah Corniche Circuit on March 7, 2024, in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
Qian Jun/MB Media/Getty Images
In other racing disciplines, particularly sports car racing, series have begun to restrict the total tire allocation across a race weekend to drive the development of more durable tires that will be used across multiple stints rather than being changed at each pit stop. That’s less appropriate in F1, where the rules require using two different tire compounds during a race. But for this year, Pirelli may well be able to cut the number of wet and intermediate tires by half.
“We are working on another idea that is what we call ‘strip and fit.’ When we fit a tire on a rim, even if it is new, we have to scrap it because of the bead and the stress that you put on the bead,” Isola said.
“But we made an investigation on wet and intermediate tires where the stress on the tire was lower compared to the slick tire. So the tires that we are going to fit but not use during the first half of the season will be dismounted and checked, and then we can use them in the second half of the season. If it doesn’t rain—obviously, we cannot control the weather—we are going to save roughly 50 percent of the rain tires,” he told me.
F1 only moved to 18-inch wheels from much smaller 13-inch wheels at the start of the 2022 season, long after any new vehicle was equipped with wheels so small. There have been complaints that the larger 18-inch wheels have added too much unsprung weight to the current generation of F1 cars, which are by far the heaviest the sport has seen in its history.
Consequently, it was believed that the sport might reduce the wheel size to 16 inches in 2026. But that would require an expensive testing program, and since 16-inch wheels are barely more road-relevant to current new vehicles than 13-inch wheels, the decision was made to stick with what we mostly have now, although the final tire size and shape have yet to be decided upon.
Enlarge/ While it’s hard to read too much into preseason testing times, it’s also hard to see anyone really challenging Red Bull or Max Verstappen for outright speed.
Mark Thompson/Getty Images
The sixth season of Drive to Survive, Netflix’s blockbuster behind-the-scenes sportumentary, went live today. This isn’t a review of that. Instead, for the past few days my attention has been turned to Formula 1’s preseason testing, which got underway on Wednesday morning at the Bahrain International Circuit in Bahrain.
In the olden days, preseason testing was a thing you’d read about in the specialty press—a reason to buy a copy of Autosport in February, if you will. There was a lot more of it back then, too; up to five official preseason tests, although it was unusual for a team to attend all of them.
In F1’s current era, there isn’t really time for so much testing, even if it weren’t strictly limited by the rules. The first race of what should be a 24-race calendar takes place next Saturday (March 2), with the final round, also in the Middle East, not scheduled until December 8. Contrast that with the early 2000s, when a season might run for 16 or 17 races between early March and mid-October.
Enlarge/ This year the teams get three test days ahead of 24 race weekends.
Mark Thompson/Getty Images
Back then, none of the preseason testing would be broadcast to fans, either. Now, thanks to F1’s streaming platform, there are 24 hours of coverage to keep you occupied, with each eight-hour day covered by an English-language commentary team that combines some of F1’s own (yay, Sam Collins!) with some voices more familiar to Sky’s (and therefore ESPN’s) coverage, like the always-excellent Anthony Davidson.
While I imagine the committed F1 fan will also add in all 10 hours of DtS season six, you’re unlikely to get nearly as good of a technical insight into the new cars or come away with a better understanding of what the drivers are doing in the cars to extract such speed so consistently.
Don’t read much into the times
An important thing to know about preseason testing is that it’s very difficult to read much into any of the lap times. The cars aren’t subject to scrutineering checks the way they are during a race weekend, and some teams aren’t above putting together a so-called glory lap to top the timesheets and maybe attract a sponsor or two.
These days, that’s far less likely than sandbagging—intentionally driving a car slowly at certain points during a lap, perhaps—to hide one’s true pace. Instead, each team has its own run plan designed to satisfy the needs of the engineers.
Rarer still is the team that shows up with something revolutionary that blows everyone else into the weeds. But it does happen—check out Keanu Reeves’ Brawn: The Impossible F1 Story for a 21st-century example of such a sporting fairytale.
What’s changed in the offseason?
There have been no real changes to the technical regulations for this year, but every team has a new car that reflects their better understanding of how the current ruleset needs to be best exploited.
The key to generating useful aerodynamic downforce from a current F1 car’s ground effect is to keep the car as stable as possible under both braking and accelerating, which means controlling dive at the front axle and countering lift at the rear axle. For 2024, some teams have had a fundamental rethink of how they do that.
George and Lewis will push the WhatsApp button to talk to their race engineers.
Kym Illman/Getty Images
Ferrari topped the time sheets on days two and three, and the car looks fast in long runs as well as qualifying simulations.
Mario Renzi – Formula 1/Formula 1 via Getty Images
Mercedes (and the teams it supplies engines to) have moved to rear pushrod suspension.
Peter Fox – Formula 1/Formula 1 via Getty Images
Sauber is a good example of a team that’s kept as much of the car bare carbon as possible.
Mark Thompson/Getty Images
Visa Cash App RB is a daft name for a team. And while I’m complaining, should Red Bull really be allowed to own two teams? I can’t think of another sport where someone can own more than one franchise.
Rudy Carezzevoli/Getty Images
Long-serving Red Bull team boss Christian Horner is looking less secure in his position thanks to an ongoing internal investigation regarding inappropriate behavior towards a subordinate.
Mark Thompson/Getty Images
There’s a new boss at Haas, Ayao Komatsu.
NDREJ ISAKOVIC/AFP via Getty Images
Aston Martin’s car looks like it handles well, but might not have the pace of either Ferrari or Mercedes.
Mark Thompson/Getty Images
You’d think two French teammates in a French team might be a recipe for harmony, but Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly don’t really have the best relationship.
Clive Mason/Getty Images
Alex Albon drove last year’s Williams into some points-paying positions when the track suited the car. This year Williams says it has a car with a much wider operating window.
Rudy Carezzevoli/Getty Images
Kick Sauber and RB (yes, those are real names) are joining Red Bull and McLaren in using pullrods (instead of pushrods) for their front suspension. Meanwhile, Mercedes, Aston Martin, and Williams have switched to rear pushrods, which interfere less with the underbody aerodynamics, leaving just Ferrari and their client Haas sticking with rear pullrods.
The floor might generate more of the downforce now, but that doesn’t mean bodywork isn’t important. Red Bull’s looks significantly different, incorporating ideas tried with varying success at other teams like Ferrari’s “bathtub sidepod” or Mercedes’ “zero sidepod.”
Truthfully, the most immediately noticeable difference from last year has been more teams opting to forgo a full-body paint job, preferring large expanses of bare carbon fiber in the name of saving another kilo or two. And if you’re looking for nerd trivia to bore impress someone with, the Mercedes drivers now have a WhatsApp button on their steering wheel to use to radio back to the pits.
Enlarge/ Don’t you hate it when an important email ends up here?
Getty Images
Last week, Formula 1 formally rejected a bid by Andretti Cadillac to join the sport as an 11th team and constructor. Among the details in a lengthy justification of its decision, Formula 1 wrote that on December 12, it invited the Andretti team to an in-person meeting, “but the Applicant did not take us up on this offer.” Now, it turns out that the Andretti team never saw the email, which instead got caught by a spam filter.
Not even a follow-up?
“We were not aware that the offer of a meeting had been extended and would not decline a meeting with Formula One Management,” the team said in a statement. “An in-person meeting to discuss commercial matters would be and remains of paramount importance to Andretti Cadillac. We welcome the opportunity to meet with Formula One Management and have written to them confirming our interest.”
F1 apparently never followed up with a phone call or even subsequent email during the six weeks between that initial invitation and its announcement at the end of January. Had the two parties gotten together, it’s likely that Andretti could have cleared up some other things for F1 as well.
You just assumed 2025
As F1 noted in its justification, Formula 1 is about to go through a significant rule change in 2026. The cars will be a little narrower and lighter, and the expensive, complicated hybrid system that recovers waste heat energy (known as the MGU-H) is going away—to compensate, the hybrid system that recovers energy under braking (the MGU-K) will get far more powerful.
Designing a car to enter the 2025 season and then a completely different car to a new set of rules in 2026 would be quite the challenge. No one appears to have understood this more than Andretti, which has instead been concentrating on designing a car to those 2026 rules.
Having realized some time ago that the entire process—which began in February 2023—had dragged on so long that it would be virtually impossible to field an entry for next year, the team said it had “been operating with 2026 as the year of entry for many months now. The technicality of 2025 still being part of the application is a result of the length of this process.”
Hey, I know you!
That in-person meeting would also have allowed F1’s management to say hello to some old faces it knows well; Andretti’s chief designer John McQuilliam, head of aerodynamics Jon Tomlinson, and technical director Nick Chester have all worked under F1 technical director Pat Symonds in the past.
As many have pointed out, F1’s claim that any new team has to be competitive and able to challenge for wins doesn’t hold much water, particularly since a single team took home all but one winner’s trophy last season. But it also remains clear that F1 really doesn’t want to add an 11th team to its roster, despite how advantageous a new American team could be as the sport attempts to grow its presence here in the US.
The entry process was not opened by F1 but by the FIA (Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile), which writes the rulebook and used to have sole jurisdiction over this kind of thing until the European Union’s antitrust action forced the FIA to give up its commercial interest in the sport in 1999. At first, the commercial rights were owned by Bernie Ecclestone, then the private equity group CVC Capital Partners, and since 2018, Liberty Media. Under the current agreement between the FIA, F1, and the teams, F1 has a veto on any new addition to the sport, even if—as is the case with Andretti Cadillac—an entrant passes the FIA’s due diligence.
Now that the communications breakdown has been revealed, perhaps Andretti and F1 can get back together and have a more civilized discussion about an entry in 2026.
