Williams boss James Vowles thinks Formula 1’s latest power-unit flashpoint is about to burn itself out. Others in the room in Bahrain weren’t so sure.
The sport has spent the opening days of the final 2026 pre-season test circling the same question: what, exactly, is permitted when it comes to geometric compression ratios — and, crucially, how they’re checked. After several recent meetings of the Power Unit Advisory Committee, the expectation in the paddock is that a decision is close, potentially before the March 1 engine homologation cut-off.
The political shape of the argument is fairly clear. Mercedes is understood to have interpreted a grey area in the wording around compression ratios in a way the other manufacturers don’t like. With the Brixworth camp believed to be most exposed by any late adjustment to the policing of the rule, the four non-Mercedes power unit manufacturers have been pushing for clarity and, if necessary, a swift change to the test methodology via a supermajority at PUAC level.
That push hasn’t just been conducted in formal meetings, either. Alongside an F1 Commission gathering on Wednesday morning in Bahrain, the non-Mercedes manufacturers are understood to have held an unofficial meeting between themselves to align on the issue — a tell that this is being treated as more than a technical curiosity.
In the FIA press conference later that day, Vowles was notably relaxed about the whole thing. Williams runs Mercedes power, and Vowles has already argued in recent days that F1 shouldn’t be in the business of punishing the best solutions if they’re legal — a line that lands differently depending on where you sit.
“I think there’s probably a misunderstanding of just how significant it is,” Vowles said. “There will be a resolution, I’m sure. For me, it’s just noise. Frankly, it will go away probably over the next 48 hours, is my guess… But that isn’t the big ticket item, I would say, in this championship race.”
It was the kind of comment that can read as calm leadership or as strategic downplaying, depending on your level of cynicism. Either way, it’s hard to escape the reality that the stakes here are precisely why the “noise” has become loud: any change that forces design work, re-validation or altered operating windows this late in the winter matters — and everyone in the pitlane knows it.
While Vowles didn’t specify what a settlement might look like, the most talked-about compromise is a new compression ratio test that can be conducted at higher temperatures than the current ambient test procedure. The idea, as understood in Bahrain, is that the four non-Mercedes manufacturers have already put that to the FIA and FOM, seeking a quick green light that would also deliver the votes needed for a supermajority — and, potentially, leave Mercedes with less room to argue its interpretation remains protected.
Red Bull team boss Laurent Mekies, speaking in the same press conference, pushed back on the suggestion the whole saga is being overcooked. Not because Red Bull is panicking about where the decision lands, but because the sport cannot afford a regulation that’s open to competing interpretations when the cars are about to go racing.
“We don’t think it’s noise. We think we must have the clarity,” Mekies said. “We are not stressed if it goes left or if it goes right, but we must have the clarity on what we can and what we cannot do.
“It’s true that it’s early days, but it will come to a point very quickly where any competitive advantage, whether it is one, two, three, whatever number of tenths, is going to make a difference.”
That’s the core of it. F1 can live with clever solutions; it struggles when the boundary of legality depends on which meeting you were in, and which lawyer read which paragraph. Teams can’t plan development programmes — or, in this case, commit to homologation choices — when the enforcement mechanism itself is still being negotiated.
Audi’s Jonathan Wheatley took a more institutional line, placing faith in the governing body and the manufacturers to land something workable.
“The FIA are working with the power unit manufacturers,” Wheatley said. “I know that each power unit manufacturer is working very closely with the FIA on this topic, and we trust 100 per cent in their ability to manage this right away through this entire set of technical regulations. So I think, on our part, it’s in safe hands.”
Mekies echoed that confidence, while also pushing back on outside readings of Red Bull’s position as opportunistic or evasive. Red Bull, he insisted, isn’t trying to steer the rule “left or right” — it simply wants to know where the line is before the grid locks in what could be decisive hardware for the season.
Behind the soundbites, there’s a more awkward truth: the moment you’re discussing a vote, a supermajority and a methodology change on the eve of homologation, you’re no longer in purely technical territory. You’re in the realm where governance, competitive self-interest and precedent collide.
And that’s why some in the paddock have suggested Vowles’ “48 hours” might be optimistic. A resolution does feel likely — no one seems to want this to drag into the opening races — but the details matter, and the timeline is tight.
For now, the best read from Bahrain is that F1 is heading towards a clearer test and a clearer enforcement standard, because it almost has to. Whether that lands as a neat administrative tidy-up or an early-season flashpoint will depend on what the final wording does to the one manufacturer everyone believes has the most to lose.
