Everything We Know About F1s Radical New 2026 Cars

Four races into one of the biggest regulation changes in F1’s history and the sport’s bosses are once looking to the future and the next set of revolutionary cars.

At the F1 Commission meeting older week, the FIA revealed its six initial goals for the 2026 chassis regulations. These are set to be introduced slantingly the next generation of power units and the FIA have got some would-be plans to promote plane closer racing than overly before.

Although these aren’t set in stone just yet, it gives us a good idea of the direction the sport is heading in…

CHASSIS

Over the past 20 years, F1 cars have gotten larger and heavier much to frustration of drivers and fans, expressly when the cars are too big to race properly at some of the most iconic circuits on the calendar, like Monaco.

Back in 2008, the cars weighed virtually 585kg, going up to 691kg when the hybrid engines were introduced in 2014. Now, the 2022 cars come in at a minimum of 798kg, including the drivers and tyres but without fuel. Add in a full fuel load and you get cars weighing in at a whopping 908kg. 

However, for 2026, the FIA plans to shrink those cars when down, making them shorter and smaller, and potentially lighter – or at least not any heavier than they are now.

To unzip this, there’s a focus on zippy piloting to reduce drag. This would powerfully create two car modes: a high-downforce mode with upper stilt for cornering and a low-drag mode with low downforce to help them withal the straights. 

It’s not only what the cars squint like that is stuff thought about, but what they are made of. In a bid to wilt increasingly sustainable, F1 wants teams to reuse materials to make new parts rather than what they are currently doing, creating them from scratch out of increasingly sustainable materials. For example, McLaren’s suburbanite seats are made out of an eco-friendly stat fibre replacement.

AUTO-CRASH PREVENTION

To help increase safety in F1, the FIA is exploring the possibility of zippy and unfluctuating safety systems, using car to car alerts to help prevent crashes. These would zestful the car if flipside in front is travelling slowly, similar to the sensors in road cars.

The full details well-nigh this haven’t been released yet, but potentially could we see emergency brakes stuff introduced? Maybe.

How cars swizzle crash energy is flipside safety speciality stuff looked at, but this will probably take a increasingly work to icon out, as it’s difficult to make the cars smaller and still leave unbearable room for the crash energy to deform without hurting the suburbanite inside the cockpit.

ENGINES

It’s what’s underneath the chassis that has got both Audi and Porsche eyeing up a potential move into F1. One of the key goals of the 2026 changes is to make the sport as lulu as possible for new power unit manufacturers to join and, increasingly importantly, to be competitive (basically to stave repeating Honda’s disastrous return with McLaren in 2015). 

That ways that while the 1.6-litre V6 engines are staying, the MGU-Hs are gone. The MGU-H, which convert wasted heat into electrical energy, is a ramified and expensive piece of kit, which had little-to-no use for car manufacturers like Ferrari to use on the road. 

To compensate, the hybrid power from the MGU-K is stuff increased, upping the electric power to 350kW to stave a waif in performance levels. 

Financially, these new power units are expected to be far cheaper to produce than the current engines made by Mercedes, Ferrari, Renault and Red Bull. To help any new suppliers that decide to join, the FIA is considering introducing a separate power unit forfeit cap.

Although there’s a upkeep cap of $140m this season, there’s no restriction on how much engine suppliers can spend on developing their power units. This cap is predicted to be virtually $140m as well, with a $5m-$10m top-up per year for newcomers to help them reservation up.

Additionally, the plan is to throne towards more simplified and standard parts wideness all the teams. These are cheaper to produce and you can once see spec parts on the 2022 cars, with the wheel covers, fuel spritz meters, radios and rear lights stuff the same up and lanugo the grid. 

FUEL

While 2022 saw the introduction of E10 fuel, made from 90% fossil fuels and 10% renewable ethanol from plant waste, it’s once been spoken that by 2026 F1 will be switching to 100% sustainable, synthetic fuel.

Made from either a carbon capture system, municipal waste or non-food biomass, these drop-in fuels won’t require teams to yo-yo their engines in order to use them and are unscientific to save at least 65% greenhouse gas emissions compared to regular petrol.

Lastly, switching to active aero to reduce stilt is an unscientific saving of 20-25% of fuel used. By making the cars increasingly fuel-efficient and increasing the use of electrical energy, they can siphon less fuel and reduce the size of fuel tanks needed.

Overall, shorter, lighter, safer and increasingly eco-friendly cars seem like a step in the right direction for F1, but these plans could still squatter many changes surpassing the cars hit the track in four years’ time.

What do you think well-nigh the proposed 2026 changes? Let us know in the comments below.