The FIA has acknowledged the need to clarify its engine regulations before the 2026 Formula 1 season begins.
Single-seater director Nikolas Tombazis admitted some teams have found a way to exceed the maximum compression ratio of 16:1 when the engines are running in order to improve their performance.
Although he did not identify which manufacturer might be exploiting the compression ratio trick, Mercedes has long been a focus of speculation. McLaren, Williams and Alpine use its engines, as does Mercedes’ factory team.
“Of course as these engineers are very clever and always pushing for an advantage, some have found ways to potentially increase it when the engine is running hot and that is the discussion we’re having now,” said Tombazis in a video published by the FIA.
“We’ve spent a lot of time with Jan [Monchaux, single-seater technical director] discussing how we solve those issues and our intention is, of course, to solve them for the start of the season. We don’t want to have controversies, we want people to be competing on the track, not in the courtroom or in the stewards’ room and that’s what we’re trying to do.”
The lower compression ratio limit was introduced to encourage new manufacturers to enter F1, said Tombazis. The new 2026 rules have been a success in this regard: Although Renault has left, Audi and Red Bull-Ford have entered, Honda has returned and Cadillac is due to arrive in 2029.
Tombazis believes more manufacturers would have left had the new rules not been introduced.
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“We wanted, with these regulations, in the early days, to invite newcomers and I think we’ve been quite successful. We have five PU manufacturers at the moment and one on the way of coming into the sport. If we had not done those changes I think we probably would have two by now and […] that would have been a problem.
“So because all of these newcomers have started way behind the established ones, we had to create some ways that would enable these newcomers to join the sport on a fair playing field, because otherwise they would have been way behind. As there’s a cost cap, as there are limitations, they would always have been struggling to catch up. It’s still going to be massively challenging for them, it’s not an easy task.
“That’s why part of the condition for these guys to come in was also to create some simplification, some cost reduction also, and the compression ratio was one of those. That was the reason we went from what used to be a limit of 18:1 – which frankly was almost not a limit because you could hardly reach that level – to 16:1 which is a bit of a compromise.”
He said the size of F1 teams’ engineering divisions means the FIA always faces a challenge to prevent designers finding ways to get around its rules.
“It’s a numbers game and a statistics game, and it’s impossible when we have new rules not to have such areas of discussion,” he said. “That’s always been the case.
“I think what has changed is that we are determined to make this a championship of competition between the best drivers, the best engineers, the teams, but not a championship of rule interpretation. We want it to be a championship of engineering prowess as well as driving prowess but not of just who is a smarter rule interpreter.”
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