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This year’s F1 championship introduced the biggest rule change in the sport’s history,<\/a> with new aerodynamic and engine regulations.<\/p>\n While the chassis rules have generally been a hit – even if the cars are a little slower than last year – the new engines most definitely have not.<\/p>\n The nominal 50-50 split between internal combustion and electrical power (more like 53-47 in reality) combined with the architecture of the engines, has left them energy starved.<\/p>\n And when the battery is empty, the cars have only about 540bhp – as four-time champion Max Verstappen puts it, “less or more or less than an F3 car but with F1 downforce, so you can imagine that is not very exciting to drive”.<\/p>\n The need to constantly charge the battery has neutered many of the best corners on many of F1’s greatest tracks, reducing them to what Fernando Alonso has called “charging stations”.<\/p>\n The flip side is the energy starvation has led to some interesting battles, known as “yo-yo racing”, with cars swapping positions repeatedly over a number of laps.<\/p>\n But the drivers point out this is artificial, and that overtakes are often happening simply because one driver suddenly has 350kW (470bhp) more than the other.<\/p>\n Verstappen says: “Sometimes people say: ‘Ah yeah, but this was a great race.’ I say: ‘Yeah, but it’s not really realistic the way we are racing.’<\/p>\n “And then you arrive to some tracks and you’re driving on not a lot of horsepower for F1 standards. And it’s a little bit painful, which I could see coming already for years. So, it’s then, of course, not the most exciting.<\/p>\n “At one point I’m also a little bit fed up with repeating myself, because it’s already hard enough just having to drive it.”<\/p>\n The drivers – especially Verstappen and Alonso, but most of the others, too – were very vocal about this from very early in the season. The sport as a whole recognised there was a problem, and has reacted.<\/p>\n Tweaks to the rules<\/a> to lessen the problem were made after just three races, and the engine split will be modified to become 60-40 by 2028,<\/a> with an intermediate step for next year.<\/p>\n That will significantly reduce these issues, but not eradicate them completely.<\/p>\n F1’s governing body the FIA was warned repeatedly in the years leading up to 2026 that this energy starvation issue would happen.<\/p>\n This has left an easy target for FIA president, Mohammed Ben Sulayem, to propose a return to naturally aspirated V8 engines for 2031.<\/p>\n It’s an idea with distinctly limited support among F1’s stakeholders. It lacks imagination and analysis, comes with its own set of problems, and is effectively turning the clock back 15 years.<\/p>\n The issue is not hybrid engines or turbos per se; it is the lack of energy recovery possibilities.<\/p>\n It’s a situation F1 forced on itself by removing the MGU-H, which recovered energy from the turbo and exhaust, and not allowing recovery from the front axle.<\/p>\n The sport needs to take a pause, intelligently and rigorously analyse what it wants from its engines in the future.<\/p>\n Then it needs to come up with a package that satisfies the manufacturers, has road-relevance, embraces concerns about the climate crisis, does not create a noise-hazard threat to some of the sport’s most high-profile races, is cheaper, allows the drivers to almost total access to full power, and gives a facility for overtaking.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n