The FIA’s first proper mid-flight reality check on Formula 1’s 2026 rules has revealed a familiar dynamic: the governing body can see a problem coming, but any meaningful fix still has to survive the teams’ self-interest.
Nikolas Tombazis, the FIA’s single-seater director, has confirmed there was a proposal last year to significantly trim the peak electrical deployment planned for the new power unit era. The number on the table was a 200kW cap — a major step down from the 350kW level embedded in the regulations — and it didn’t get over the line. The teams, collectively, chose to keep the higher electrical contribution.
On paper, that sounds like a straightforward vote for the intended 2026 philosophy. In practice, it’s another example of how regulation is never just about “the show” or even the engineering purity of an idea. It’s also about whose development path gets protected, whose dyno programme stays relevant, and whose simulation work suddenly becomes obsolete.
The FIA’s underlying concern is the one everyone in the paddock has been discussing since the new split between electrical and internal combustion power became clear: energy management has the potential to dominate too much of the driving. If a driver is constantly in a harvest-and-deploy cycle — especially when they’re flat-out — you risk creating an on-track product that looks more like accountancy than racing.
Tombazis was candid that the compromise has been known from the start.
“When you have a percentage of electrical to internal combustion energy and power of that ratio, the whole energy management becomes more challenging,” he explained. The FIA, he said, has tried to mitigate those compromises, but early 2026 form has made life harder than expected.
The key detail is why. According to Tombazis, the new cars have turned out quicker than anticipated and have “found a bit more downforce” than the FIA expected. That has a knock-on effect: less energy recovered under braking than predicted, which tightens the energy budget and makes the management task on-track more acute.
That matters because it reframes the debate. The issue isn’t simply that the regulations were written with a high electrical component; it’s that the performance envelope has shifted enough that the recovery assumptions no longer neatly match the reality of what the cars are doing in race conditions. If you recover less than planned, you either accept more coasting and charging behaviour, or you change the framework.
The FIA has already moved on some of the details. After the first three rounds of the season, further tweaks were signed off, including lifting peak “super clipping” from 250kW to 350kW. In simple terms, that’s aimed at reducing the amount of time drivers spend managing charging while flat-out — a nod to the desire for a more “natural” driving style, rather than the stop-start feel that can creep in when the electrical side is too constrained.
But the bigger swing — cutting peak electrical power itself — was the one the teams blocked when it was floated around a year ago. A 200kW limit would have pushed the cars back toward greater reliance on the internal combustion engine, easing the electrical pinch points and, in theory, reducing the incentives for visible lift-and-coast patterns when drivers are trying to keep the battery state where they need it.
You don’t have to be especially cynical to see why teams would hesitate. Everyone has built their 2026 architecture around the known targets, and the electrical side in particular touches everything: cooling, weight distribution, packaging, and the fine detail of how performance is delivered over a lap. A late shift in the power split doesn’t just change a number; it changes the competitive map. And in F1, “stability” is often code for “don’t move the goalposts once we’ve sunk the money”.
Still, Tombazis made it clear the subject isn’t going away.
“We did propose the reduction of power about a year ago, and it was rejected,” he said. “The point there was that we were going to wait for the first few races, which is what we did.
“Now, is that the final time we talk about it? I don’t think so. We will continue monitoring whether there will be extra additions that would have to be further discussed.”
That line is doing a lot of work. The FIA’s posture heading into Miami is that what’s being implemented now is “evolution rather than revolution”, shaped by what the first part of the season has exposed. But it’s also an implicit warning: if the on-track compromise becomes too visible — if energy management starts deciding too many battles — the governing body will keep coming back with proposals, and at some point it will get harder for teams to hide behind the comfort of having voted something down once.
Tombazis also stressed the limits of what can be changed quickly. Any further moves wouldn’t be done on safety grounds, and weren’t in scope for Miami or for the current year’s implementation cycle. For now, the FIA wants to see how the current package copes and then “review the matter”.
It leaves the sport in an in-between place. The teams have, for now, protected the headline 2026 electrical ambition — but the FIA is effectively admitting the real-world behaviour of the cars is tighter and more difficult than the rulemakers expected. If that continues, the political temperature rises: the championship becomes the test lab, and every fix becomes a negotiation.
In other words, 2026 is already doing what new eras always do in Formula 1. The rules arrive with a neat theory attached. Then the cars hit the track, the unintended consequences appear, and the arguments begin.
