2026 F1 Engine Regulations: A Critical Look!

TimeStamps:
0:00 Intro, Disclaimer
0:22 F1 Engines today (2022)
4:42 Proposed 2026 fuel use checks
5:54 Big Batteries are NOT an option
10:32 Better Brake Harvesting?
15:20 Summary of skepticism
17:46 Predictions (i.e. use this against me later)
19:50 F1 races were faster 17 years ago!
21:34 Summary
22:37 Bonus Question, is the fuel truly green?

[NielsHeusinkveld]

Someone with a lot of spare time should check the 2005 races against the 2021 ones for safety cars etc, I didn't bother, so maybe that argument is invalid or less valid.

[erwinlommer]

I've been saying this since 2014. It is sad that this road relevance bullcrap has taken over F1. F1 should not be about efficiency or electric powertrains just for the sake of having it. F1 should be about speed and making the cars quicker and using the tech for that. Not to use the tech for marketing pr. In modern times f1 should be lighter, safer and technically advanced. Instead we get toyota prius road car jammed into obese s-class merc length f1 chassis with pure focus on pr marketing speech about hybrid engines and locked down aerodynamics. The cars are massively obese and really slow through a race because of the weight. The weight doesn't just slow the car but it chews up the tires quicker as well. Bigger tires = again more weight and drag.

The saddest thing being that modern F1 doesn't even have anything to do with road car tech either. F1 cars operate at high rpms, focus on full throttle driving and hard accelerations. Which means high heat loads, lots of cooling while pretty much ignoring the cost. Road car drives at very low rpm, turns off the combustion engine to save fuel and 99.999% of the time is driven at partial throttle at steady speeds while focusing on being cheap to manufacture to make the initial higher purchase price of the car economically viable for buyers in the long run based on reduced running costs. Harvesting is mild because decelerations are small. This means the requirements for battery tech are totally different as well. F1 needs big bursts of energy and big harvesting continously. Road car is about small constant loads. No research on f1 car translates to road cars.

I'm going to say it. V10 are relatively cheap to make and still offer room for technical innovations. The cars would be cheaper and smaller. And compared to hybrids, lighter all the way through the race even without refueling. A v10 engine is under 100kg. The rules require these hybrids engines to be 180kg. That is already a 80kg difference that the V10 can use as fuel. If hybrid takes 100kg of fuel, the v10 can take 180kg and still be lighter as the race progresses. In fact with a normally aspirated engine we could have manufacturers choose whatever engine layouts they want without the costs going out of control because the power numbers would still be really close.

Now that we have the engines sorted lets put active suspension on the cars. An actual tech that could produce innovations for road cars. And better yet, we can use active aero as well. Drs is the devil and I don't want that but moving wings should be just common sense at this point in time imho. After all if we really want to address efficiency then we should look at where all the fuel is spent. Hustling a brick drive around the circuit consumes a lot of fuel and in f1 all the wings of the car are at the same high downforce high drag position all the time. F1 fuel consumption is all about drag.

Small servo motors or hydraulics could be used to reduce wing angles and make some other aerofoils stall giving us tons of extra straightline speed and corner speeds even with less horsepower. That means lower fuel consumption giving us better efficiency and faster lap times. And more exciting cars both at mouthbreather level and engineering level than these current corporate committee design things that only exist for marketing speech. And if someone really wants to look at pollution then look at the jets that move the circus around the world and what they consume. F1 pollution with all their manufacturing is minor compared to that.

Thanks. I needed to have my soap box moment there.

[AdastraRecordings]

Carrying full fuel makes a huge difference, any ex GPL'er will understand that, that has to be a factor as well as power deployment.

[blueaugust]

This was great! More videos like this please! Current topics + nerdly spreadsheets

[iKR-iKeysRacing]

Grande Niels!
Stunning and very interesting video on technical matters.
Thanks!

Tech-things that unluckily I don't have skills or know-how to explain better than you did.

I can only bring on the table one fresh and actual example, about WEC.

They are using biofuels from the 12hrs of Sebring 2022 onwards.

Used on Hypercars come to their second year in a row of development (so I assume technically a bit faster than 2021, from a pure mechanical/dynamic point of view; let's say optimized better).

At Le Mans 2022 they run in qualifying 1 second slower ish, compared to 2021.

On a track 13km long registering 3m 24s seconds per lap at their best hyperpole tentative (if we take the Toyota pole sitter).

This single second slower with cars weighting 1.030kg, ICE power of 670hp/500kW (with 270hp/200kW coming from electric power if I remember well).

At least they are a reality already in place.

And because they are state-of-the-art cars for Endurance scenario (they last 5.000km in 24hrs, big players behind like Toyota, Alpine/Renault...recently also Ferrari, Porsche, Cadillac, BMW...) I find at least strange that F1 will have a magic wand to overcome so easily such delicate parameters, in the whole balance.

In just 3 years time, from now.

I'll maybe wrong. But I doubt it is something more than pure marketing from F1 circus at this stage.

I fear too that the real figure will be different, tweaked or delayed.

Best wishes and cheers 🥂 from Monza 🙋🏻‍♂️
Marco Lazzari [iKR]

P.S. OutOfScope
I finally downloaded AMS from Steam and OMG! It is pure enjoyment at the wheel: driving the F.Trainer/F.Ford did bring me back to 2003 when I raced in the italian F.Junior category, very similar to FF.

We just used FIAT 1.2l engine but weight-to-power was very close and...
...how did you succeed to harness THAT behaviour/feeling??? 😱😱😱

This is real magic!!! Congratulations but mainly THANK YOU: you did give me back 20 yrs of youthness 🔝🔝🔝

[robleej_]

17:29 - 🎵Where did you come from, where did you go?
Where did you come from, Cotton-Eye Joe?🎵

Superb essay Mr Heusinkveld 👍

[ivaks]

Great technical video as always Niels, keep the F1 content coming!

[karelvanoorschot]

Hi Niels, one thing you have overlooked (but making the situation worse) is the power required to harvest all the braking energy. Braking for turn 1 takes around 2 seconds during which 2300Kj will be regenerated. This will required the E-motor to be able to brake with 1150Kw, this would be possible but it is extreme. However an 4 mJ battery certainly cannot cope with that. A batter y has a max energy storage but also a max power. And 1150kw requires a bigger heavier battery as well, FE batery wont even be sufficent I think.

[dario]

Awesome video, more analysis and spreadsheets like this please!

[LucidSomnia]

Great video, gained another subscriber today :)

[Brawlii]

Thx for the upgrade kit in the store =D

[teabagmcpick]

20:20 Bless you for doing work to check this. I could never be bothered but this has been my view for a the last few years.

[ereisenheim]

Hi Niels, thanks for putting in numbers a fear a few (the most apparently believe all it is said to them) had after reading of the new rules.

About the hypothetical front regen: it is something mentioned a lot in the previous months (Audi and Porsche interest in F1 was also pointing at it), but given the fact that the simplest way would be installing 1 or 2 (one per wheel) generators on front axle, wouldn't this also lead to an AWD system? (Having electrical traction devices on the front and not using them would be a waste). If this were to be the case, it seams strange the lack of announcements about it. Also, this and the bigger battery go against the "rumors" of smaller cars.

About the PU efficiency: that 5% could be gained (possibly?) by an increase in mechanical efficiency of the ICE since we'll basically have he same engine of today that will have to express only 70% of the power. This could be achieved by lowering the RPMs, for example, but that would clash with the "more sound" aspect of F1.

Speaking of efficiency: I think recharging the battery with the ICE shouldn't be allowed and refueling should be reintroduced: a lower mass would help performance and a smaller tank would clear some space for the bigger battery.

[TedMeat]

Niels, you'll have to take your calculator out again because me and my friend are debating on how would totally electric rally cars work. Recharcing after each stage, energy harvesting from all the tyres and so on. I'll need a video on this tomorrow at noon. Thank you :)

[rkan]

Can we see some fuel comparison? How is ethanol among diesel kerosene and other stuff. Thanks for great compariaon video!

[pjvenda]

Also what is the real life achievable efficiency of brake recuperation systems? How much braking energy in proportion can state of the art systems take back?

[amulu]

I think someone already mentioned this but, in the current regulation the energy recovered from MGU-H can be used to power the MGU-K and that is NOT part of the 4MJ/L and this is where the teams have a lot of trickery and the place where Honda used to struggle. But either way it only means that it gonna be difficult to meet their numbers for 2026

[Haksdo]

I like the thoughts, but as you said there might be some things you have forgotten or miscalculated. Not saying that is the case, but it could be. For example, you're assuming the new fuel (we know basically nothing about that currently) will be just as efficient or less efficient then the current fuel. Efficient as in: how much power (MJ) will burning 1L of the new fuel give you compared to 1L of the current fuel. Maybe this unknown new fuel will be 10 or 20% more powerful/efficient. In that case the ICE could generate more power (i.e. almost similar power with less fuel used). This combined with more regeneration from the brakes could make the gap a lot closer.

I do agree with the general idea that the 1000hp mention is probably peak power, but that is the same currently. Only question is how close the average race power will be and thus laptimes. They say turbo lagg will be back, so I assume they might want to compensate the loss (out of slow corners) by using more electrical power there. The average topspeed might be lower though.

[MrMarcusjarvey]

Thanks for your analysis 👍. Doesn’t really add up does it?

There was an interesting article in motorsport UK app ‘revolution’ in nov 21 issue on sustainable green fuels.

Until there is some major advance in battery energy density, synthetic fuels would appear to offer the best balance of environmental impact and motorsport demands.

The problem with gaining acceptance is perception. anything with a tailpipe is already on the naughty step, whereas a 2.5 tonne EV SUV is somehow ‘green’

It’s going to be an uphill battle to try and pushback at this flawed logic, and motorsport is unfortunately front of the demonisation queue.

[curryschranke]

Hi Niels. Nice estimation and quite well comprehensible. Love it!
I would like to bring "advanced aerodynamics" into the discussion as a component you may have overlooked. WTF1 talked about a target of 20-25% fuel savings by reducing drag, including adaptive aerodynamics. What do you think?