Formula One will introduce an era of lighter, smaller and more agile cars as part of the new technical regulations that will go into effect for 2026, which the sport unveiled last month.
The FIA, Formula One's governing body, revealed the final set of car design rules, which focus on improving the raceability of the cars by reducing their size and weight.
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.
The FIA hopes the changes will improve the spectacle and place a greater emphasis on driver skill with the new generation of cars. Teams can start to work on their 2026 car designs starting on January 1.
The move to adopt nimbler cars comes after consistent criticism of the existing designs, introduced in 2022, which are the largest and heaviest in the sport's history. It was a particular problem at the Monaco Grand Prix in May, 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 3,600 millimeters (11.8 feet) to 3,400 millimeters (11.2 feet), while the maximum width will drop from 2,000 millimeters (6.6 feet) to 1,900 millimeters (6.2 feet). The maximum floor width will also be reduced by 150 millimeters.
In addition, the minimum car weight will fall by 30 kilograms (66 pounds) to 768 kilograms (1,693 pounds). About 46 kilograms (101 pounds) of that total is made up by the tires, which will also get lighter. Formula One has retained the 18-inch wheels supplied by Pirelli since 2022, but the width has been reduced by 25 millimeters (1 inch) at the front and 30 millimeters (1.2 inches) at the rear, with an estimated weight reduction per tire set of 5 kilograms (11 pounds). The overall reduction in car weight should improve the cars' handling.
Nikolas Tombazis, the FIA's single-seater director and one of the 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."
When Formula One embarked on improving the efficiency of the existing V-6 hybrid power units by almost tripling the electrical output from 120 kilowatts to 350 kilowatts, it needed to complement this with major changes to the 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" because of the amount of energy required to push the car through the air.
To prevent this, in addition to changing the car dimensions, Formula One 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 per cent with the latest car models and that drag will fall by 55 per cent.
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 end plates and the removal of the lower beam wings. The front wings will be 100 millimeters narrower and have a two-element active flap.
Drivers will receive a trigger point around the lap, similar to the current activation of the drag reduction system, or DRS, where they can switch modes irrespective of the distance 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 said. "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.
Another significant shift away from the existing regulations is the abandonment of DRS, which has been a contentious part of the rules 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 increase 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 Manual Override Mode that grants more electrical power deployment to the following car -- 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 290 kph and reach zero at 355 kph, while the following car would have the full power allowance of 350 kilowatts up to 337 kph. It is expected to be available under similar conditions to those for DRS, which can be activated when one car is within a second behind another heading into a straight.
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 really exciting period of any new regulation cycle."
The new generation of power units from 2026 will start an important new era as Formula One 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 the sport 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 a 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 Formula One to embark on such a sizable overhaul of the regulations, but it presents plenty of opportunities. When the sport introduced the V-6 hybrid power units for 2014 and altered 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.
Although 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 to vault to the front of the field and potentially start (or continue) their own cycle of domination.