What should Formula 1 sound like?
It’s an unusually emotional question for a sport as intensely focused on squeezing hundredths of a second out of intricately designed aerodynamics, but it’s one that could dominate the next year of paddock politics.
F1 is on the cusp of perhaps its biggest ever rules shake-up, part of which is a brand-new engine.
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But even with these expensive new regulations dawning on the 2026 horizon, FIA president Muhammed Ben Sulayem is casting his eyes beyond.
“While we look forward to the introduction of the 2026 regulations on chassis and power unit, we must also lead the way on future technological motorsport trends,” he wrote on social media in February.
“We should consider a range of directions including the roaring sound of the V10 running on sustainable fuel.
“Whichever direction is chosen, we must support the teams and manufacturers in ensuring cost control on R & D expenditure.”
In a few words Ben Sulayem hinted at a philosophical shift underway in Formula 1, the outcome of which will define the sport for generations.
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WHAT ARE THE 2026 REGULATIONS?
To understand where F1 is going, it’s important to understand where it is right now and what’s in store for 2026.
The current F1 formula is for a turbocharged V6 hybrid engine. It outputs around 750 kilowatts, approximately 20 per cent of which is derived from the electric elements. It’s powered by E10 fuel.
The current engine rules were designed to be both road relevant and genuinely cutting-edge. The MGU-H element — the motor generator unit that turns heat into electricity — is particularly advanced.
But that also makes these engines complex and expensive.
For 2026 the rules are being simplified. The basic architecture is retained but without the MGU-H. Instead more electrical power will be sourced from recovering kinetic energy — a much more familiar technology to anyone with a hybrid road car — for a roughly 50-50 split between internal combustion and hybrid power.
The new block will weigh at least 185 kilograms and will be powered by carbon-neutral synthetic fuel.
The simplification and increased electrification of the power unit was deliberate to court more manufacturers to the sport by making it both financially more attractive as well as by emphasising F1’s green credentials — important values to the sport.
The Volkswagen Group finally came to the table with its Audi brand, which bought the Sauber team and is designing its own motor in Germany.
Honda had intended to leave Formula 1 but has since been enticed back by the new rules.
General Motors is developing a power unit to be used by the end of the decade.
That’s three big brands won over by the new rules, covering Renault’s unrelated withdrawal.
But it hasn’t been a perfect process.
Given the lead time required for engine development, the new power unit was designed first, with the chassis rules subsequently changed to suit the motor and deal with its compromises.
The biggest example of this is that active aerodynamics have had to be reintroduced to the sport to help massively shed drag down the straights, without which the cars were at risk of simply running out of electrical power before reaching the braking zone — hardly befitting Formula 1.
Development costs have also been huge. While a cost cap for power units is now in place, it’s set at a sky-high US$130 million (A$207 million).
The FIA says it still believes its 2026 regulations will be a success, but it’s also not surprising in this context to see eyes wandering to a new formula.
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‘THINGS HAVE CHANGED’
The governing body has set up a working group to evaluate a shock overhaul of the engine rules before the next set of regulations have even come into effect.
A return to naturally aspirated V10 engines appears to be the starting point.
V10 motors were last seen in F1 20 years ago. They’d been the most popular configuration throughout the 1990s, when engine rules were far more open, and made mandatory between 2000 and 2005.
From 2006 the V10 engine was banned in favour of V8 motors, and in 2014 the sport switched to the current hybrid power unit.
On paper Formula 1 would be taking a two-decade step back into the past, but the FIA clearly believes the time is right to re-evaluate the sport’s direction.
“Things have changed,” FIA single seater director Nikolas Tombazis said, per The Race.
“A significant factor is the perception, even amongst manufacturers, about the speed at which electrification will happen.
“The second thing is that even if Formula 1 is in very good health financially, it has become important also to protect it against world economic fluctuations.
“We need to take these protective measures while the sun is shining and not when it starts raining, ideally. The drive to cut costs is important to consider.”
The “protective measures” is a particularly interesting argument.
Formula 1 is riding the crest of a popularity wave. Races are regularly selling out, viewership is up and sponsorship revenue is through the roof.
But someone must be wondering what happens when the bubble bursts.
History is a guide here.
The sport knows from experience that manufacturers tend to be the first to walk away when the going gets tough.
It suffered its last great exodus in the late 2010s, when the global financial crisis made massive F1 expenditure unattractive. Honda, Toyota and BMW withdrew from the sport completely and Renault sold its works team.
Switching to simpler, cheaper V10 engines — or some similar motor — safeguards against the same effect.
Not only would it reduce costs in the first place, but even if the sport were to suffer a mass-exit event, simpler rules could allow independent powertrain companies to pick up the slack, like long-time F1-associated independent Cosworth, for example.
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WHEN COULD IT HAPPEN?
The FIA is seemingly set on pursuing this path towards naturally aspirated engines. The question now is the time line.
The 2026 rules will expire at the end of 2031, but consensus seems to be forming around moving to something new after only two or three years.
There has since been speculation that the 2026 rule book could be thrown out entirely, allowing the current regulations to be extended to 2028 or 2029 in the interim.
That would be impossible.
For one, it would awkwardly leave Audi, Red Bull Racing and Racing Bulls without power units.
Engine supply agreements from 2026
Mercedes: Mercedes, McLaren, Alpine and Williams
Ferrari: Ferrari, Haas and Cadillac (until at least 2028)
Red Bull Powertrains: Red Bull Racing, Racing Bulls
Honda: Aston Martin
Audi: Audi
General Motors: Cadillac (from 2028 at the earliest)
Even if that hurdle could be overcome, such a change so late in the piece would require unanimous agreement, and not everyone is yet on board with the change.
While Ferrari and Red Bull are reportedly backing further work into a return to V10s, Audi is said to be against the move, having been enticed to the sport specifically for the 2026 regulations.
Honda is yet to publicly state its position, though it was also convinced by the 2026 rules to recommit to the sport.
Mercedes, which supplies the most teams of any manufacturer, is on the fence, being both open to change but baulking at the idea that the 2026 rules should be shunned so soon.
“We are looking a little bit silly as Formula 1 when we are attracting the likes of Audi and we are pitching a great hybrid engine with sustainable fuels and then suddenly we are saying we actually only want to keep it three years and not five,” Mercedes principal Toto Wolff told Autosport.
“Before regulations have even started to say, ‘Let’s look at the next engine and power unit’ I just think it makes Formula 1 look a little bit erratic.
“Any challenge that comes up is fine for us, as long as there is proper governance on how this engine is being decided upon.
“That governance is in place today, so let’s stick our heads together with all the engine manufacturers and see what it is we want to have beyond 2030 and then come up with a plan that is good for Formula 1.”
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WHAT IS GOOD FOR F1 ANYWAY?
What is ‘good for Formula 1’, however, is deeply subjective.
Up to now F1 has believed that some amount of road relevance and a tangible connection to the automotive world is good for it.
That belief has led the sport down a particular path for the last decade, and it will continue down that path until at least 2028.
That time frame is interesting, particularly in the context of F1’s popularity boom in the last five years.
An entire generation of new fans — crucial to the sport’s long-term success — has never experienced the violence of a grid of V10 engines roaring off the line. It simply isn’t integral to the spectacle for them.
Consider too that F1 has become far more family oriented in that time. Would that demographic shift still have been possible were the spectacle considerably louder?
F1 must ask whether it’s worth disrupting that connection, especially given the vast majority of fans only ever watch the sport on TV anyway.
On the other hand, a big portion of the F1 ban base fondly remembers having their ribcages rattled by the visceral spectacle of F1 as it used to be.
Some in the sport still believe the impossibly loud noise of old F1 was its best marketing tool, hammering home its extreme-sport credentials.
“It’s definitely more exciting than what we have currently,” Max Verstappen said, admitting that a switch back to V10s could prolong his career.
“I’m not in charge of the rules, but of course for pure emotion of the sport, V10 is definitely much better than what we have now.
“I remember as a kid when you walk around you hear the noise of the engines. It just brings so much more.
“Even if the speed of the car was maybe slower, just the feeling you got from an engine like that is something that you can’t describe compared to what we have now.”
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A PHILOSOPHICAL CHANGE
But the argument that might end up winning out is the philosophical one.
As the automotive world undergoes a rapid transformation and realignment, does F1 still need to work at maintaining a connection to it?
The question is particularly interesting today, with F1 more popular and lucrative than ever in its own right.
With the budget cap in place, all 10 teams are now making money — and some teams are making a lot of it via big sponsorship deals rolling into the sport.
If that money were wisely invested, the sport could make itself self-sufficient, free from the need to stay close to at least some big manufacturers for relevance.
This could be the moment F1 chooses to define itself in its own right — chooses to define what motorsport means in a changing sporting and social landscape.
Four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel is adamant that motorsport must define itself independently to survive and that synthetic fuels — carbon neutral for the way they’re made with CO2 extracted from the atmosphere — are the way to do it.
“Motorsport is our passion,” he said after taking the 1992 title-winning and synthetically fuelled Williams FW14B for a spin at Silverstone in 2022.
“It is, I think, important to find a way that we can do it responsibly in the future as well, to keep these cars and the history alive.
“You can express culture in many ways — music, arts — but our sort of culture, our way of expressing ourselves, is driving cars, racing cars, and it would be a shame if that if that was all to disappear.
“I think it’s a way to keep it alive.”
The timing and format of F1’s next engine is far more than an exercise in rule-making or technical regulation.
It’s fundamental to its future.