Formula One will introduce an era of lighter, smaller, and more agile cars as part of a “moderate revolution” of its technical regulations for 2026, which it unveiled on Thursday.
F1’s governing body, the FIA, revealed the final set of car design rules, which focus on improving the raceability of the cars by reducing their size and weight.
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In a long-expected change, the 2026 regulations will also use active aerodynamics alongside the new generation of power units that benefit from increased battery power and fully sustainable fuels.
F1’s rule-makers hope the changes will improve the on-track spectacle and place a greater emphasis on driver skill behind the wheel with the new generation of cars.
The FIA released a series of renders of what it anticipates the 2026 cars will look like as part of its announcement ahead of this weekend’s Canadian Grand Prix. The FIA’s World Motor Sport Council will formally ratify the 2026 regulations at the end of the month. Teams can start to work on their 2026 car designs from Jan. 1 next year.
A lighter, smaller generation of F1 cars
The move to adopt more “nimble” cars comes after consistent criticism of the existing designs, introduced in 2022, which are the largest and heaviest in F1 history. It was a particular sticking point at last month’s Monaco Grand Prix, where drivers lamented the difficulty in overtaking given the cars’ size and the street circuit’s tight confines.
From 2026, the cars will drop in size and weight. The maximum wheelbase length will fall from 3,600mm (11.8 ft) to 3,400mm (11.2 ft), while the maximum width will drop from 2,000mm (6.6 ft) to 1,900mm (6.2 ft). The maximum floor width will also be reduced by 150mm.
In addition, the minimum car weight will fall by 30kg (66 lbs) to 768kg (1693 lbs). Some 46kg (101 lbs) of that total is made up by the tires, which will also get lighter. F1 has retained the 18-inch wheels supplied by Pirelli since 2022, but the width has been reduced by 25mm (1 inch) at the front and 30mm (1.2 inches) at the rear, with an estimated weight reduction per tire set of 5kg (11 lbs). The overall reduction in car weight should improve the cars’ handling.
Nikolas Tombazis, the FIA’s single-seater director and one of the key architects of the new regulations, said the cars would have “quite a visual difference to the current cars.” There would be new “visual cues,” including changes to the design of the front and rear wings “that will make the cars quite distinct from the current generation of Formula One cars.”
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Tombazis described the new ruleset as a “moderate revolution” of the technical regulations. “We introduced the 2026 power unit regulations a couple of years ago, which involve further removal of the MGU-H, the significant increase of the electrical component of the power unit, as well as sustainable fuel,” he said.
“Now, as part of a drive towards the overall improvement of efficiency in these cars, the chassis regulations need to match the power unit regulations.”
Active aerodynamics introduce X-Mode and Z-Mode
When F1 embarked on improving the efficiency of the existing V6 hybrid power units by almost tripling the electrical output from 120kW to 350kW, it needed to complement this with major changes to the existing car design rules.
Jason Somerville, the FIA’s head of aerodynamics, explained that if you were to put the 2026 power units into one of the current cars, there would be a “severe drop off in speed on the typical main straights” due to the amount of energy required to push the car through the air.
To prevent this, in addition to changing the car dimensions, F1 had to reduce the amount of drag and downforce produced by the cars under the new regulations. The FIA claims that downforce will reduce by 30 percent with the latest car models and that drag will fall by 55 percent.
To reduce drag and retain downforce through the corners, the FIA opted to explore active aerodynamics, which will involve changing the profiles of movable front and rear wings around different parts of the circuit.
The new active aerodynamics system will allow drivers to switch between ‘Z-Mode,’ which offers the best cornering speed, and ‘X-Mode,’ which puts the wings into a low-drag profile that maximizes straight-line speed.
The cars achieve this through a new three-element active rear wing design, simplified endplates, and the removal of the lower beam wings. The front wings will be 100mm narrower and have a two-element active flap.
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Drivers will receive a trigger point around the lap, similar to the current activation of DRS, where they can switch modes irrespective of the gap to the cars in front.
“A driver will be able to switch to a low-drag mode to give them the performance down the straights where they’re not grip limited,” Somerville explained. “Then, as you approach the braking zone, you’ll switch back to your high downforce mode.” Drivers will do this by using a switch change or applying pressure to the brake.
The hope is that active aerodynamics will improve the efficiency of the cars using the new power units and enable more on-track action by allowing drivers to switch between modes tactically.
Goodbye DRS, hello Manual Override
Another significant shift away from the existing technical regulations is the abandonment of the Drag Reduction System (DRS), which has been a contentious part of F1’s ruleset since its introduction in 2011.
DRS has allowed any driver within a second of the car in front to open their rear wing flap to boost overtaking, but it has faced criticism at times for making passes too easy and being an artificial racing element.
However, with the adoption of the active aerodynamics on the rear wing from 2026, which will function similarly to the existing flaps, DRS will no longer be part of the regulations.
It will instead be replaced by a ‘Manual Override’ mode that grants more electrical power deployment to the following car through the MGU-K – essentially an energy boost to try to make an overtake.
The FIA said that the energy deployment of the leading car would taper off after reaching 290kph and reach zero at 355kph, while the following car would have the full power allowance of 350kW up to 337kph. It is expected to be available under similar conditions to those for DRS, which can be activated when one car is under a second behind another heading into a straight.
A new era for F1
Although the FIA has issued renders of what it anticipates the cars will look like, teams will inevitably pore over the final set of rules to find loopholes or leeway to make the fastest cars possible. Somerville acknowledged that the FIA’s idea of the car design “will almost certainly be different to what actually emerges from the teams after their development cycles.” However, he called it a “a really exciting period of any new regulation cycle.”
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The new generation of power units from 2026 will start an important new era for F1 as it emphasizes the electric power of the hybrids and using fully sustainable fuels. This has been an effective approach to pique manufacturer interest, with Audi, Honda, and Ford (through Red Bull Powertrains) joining Mercedes, Ferrari, and Renault as suppliers.
Tombazis noted in the FIA’s announcement that these regulations were “more focused on driver skill” and “designed to provide closer racing among drivers, increase the competition between teams, and improve the spectacle.” It’s a goal that F1 set out to achieve with its 2022 rules, only for the early battles between Ferrari and Red Bull to fizzle out as Max Verstappen embarked on an unprecedented period of domination. Drivers have also been lukewarm over whether the on-track product has improved, given the continued difficulty of following the cars in front.
It’s rare for F1 to embark on such a sizable overhaul of the regulations, but it presents plenty of opportunities. When F1 introduced the V6 hybrid power units in 2014 and tweaked the car design rules, Mercedes leaped ahead and started dominating the sport until the end of the decade. Red Bull has dominated since the last regulation changeover in 2022.
While car performance has gradually converged throughout the field as those regulations have matured, the 2026 changes will be a chance to reset. The chasing pack will have their best chance yet to vault to the front of the field and potentially start (or continue) their own cycle of domination.
Top photo: FIA
Luke Smith is a Senior Writer covering Formula 1 for The Athletic. Luke has spent 10 years reporting on Formula 1 for outlets including Autosport, The New York Times and NBC Sports, and is also a published author. He is a graduate of University College London. Follow Luke on Twitter @LukeSmithF1
