2026 Drama: Alleged engine loophole

[etusch]

The rumour is weak sauce.

There is a thread on altering compression ratio by non-mechanical means already and it was deemed that cheating with expanding pistons or expanding valves, sparkplugs would be a real problem that would compromise the material strength itself (even if it doesn't break the rules!)

Yes. There are some issues there. You should use some material will expand under heat but it should be sticked it's place before expanding. It should expand toward cylinder clearance. So keeping it in its place and keeping it away from valve during their work are hard to achieve but what if they found a way to do it ?

[AR3-GP]

Yes. There are some issues there. You should use some material will expand under heat but it should be sticked it's place before expanding. It should expand toward cylinder clearance. So keeping it in its place and keeping it away from valve during their work are hard to achieve but what if they found a way to do it ?

It is suggested in the video above that the mechanism is in the head, not the piston.

[NL_Fer]

How certain are we this engine can compress the mixture 1:18 ? It seems pretty high to me. Does anybody think they are using a miller type cycle and just use the extra compression ratio, to have more expension, extract more energy from the combustion?

[AR3-GP]

How certain are we this engine can compress the mixture 1:18 ? It seems pretty high to me. Does anybody think they are using a miller type cycle and just use the extra compression ratio, to have more expension, extract more energy from the combustion?

The 2014-2025 engines used 18:1. It's no problem. The 2026 regulations require the geometric ratio to be reduced to 16:1 but some manufacturers have found a way to remain at 18:1 in operating conditions.

[NL_Fer]

How certain are we this engine can compress the mixture 1:18 ? It seems pretty high to me. Does anybody think they are using a miller type cycle and just use the extra compression ratio, to have more expension, extract more energy from the combustion?

The 2014-2025 engines used 18:1. It's no problem. The 2026 regulations require the geometric ratio to be reduced to 16:1 but some manufacturers have found a way to remain at 18:1 in operating conditions.

2014-2025 also run 3-4 bar of boost, mixture as lean as lambda 2.5

I am not taking for granted, they were compressing 1:18 too.

[AR3-GP]

How certain are we this engine can compress the mixture 1:18 ? It seems pretty high to me. Does anybody think they are using a miller type cycle and just use the extra compression ratio, to have more expension, extract more energy from the combustion?

The 2014-2025 engines used 18:1. It's no problem. The 2026 regulations require the geometric ratio to be reduced to 16:1 but some manufacturers have found a way to remain at 18:1 in operating conditions.

2014-2025 also run 3-4 bar of boost, mixture as lean as lambda 2.5

I am not taking for granted, they were compressing 1:18 too.

I don't know how they'll do it, but there is benefit if you can do it. It's a good point that you made. The boost pressure limit is 4.8bar in 2026 (Art 5.5.2). The engines would have to be reinforced more to utilize a higher compression ratio.

[Tommy Cookers]

2014-2025 .... mixture as lean as lambda 2.5

I disagree 1000%

don't we know they were and are 'Miller cycle' because we have been told by those who know acting in official mode ?

a mean lambda 2.5 is impossible in F1 (or any fuel that isn't already a gas)

(though I wrote years ago that WW2 and Le Mans 24 hr were won with engines detonating part-way through combustion)

[Juzh]

How certain are we this engine can compress the mixture 1:18 ? It seems pretty high to me. Does anybody think they are using a miller type cycle and just use the extra compression ratio, to have more expension, extract more energy from the combustion?

The 2014-2025 engines used 18:1. It's no problem.

I heard it was initially set at 16:1, but then got increased to 18:1 after some years.

[proteus]

Sorry but this is not an argument even.
Like any part of your argument is written in diamonds by god itself...
The FIA can do whatever they want, including the teams.
The FIA have repeatedly said, when there will be huge differences between engines, they will act.
And regardless of this, they still can. They just have to want it.

If the teams in question have a brain, they will probably limit their engines so that it will not be deemed too much stronger than the competition, so they will retain some benefit. If their engine will be deemed too much more powerful the FIA will probably step in.

If they step in and limit the engines, then they should simply close the doors and dispand the sport. In what universe is this even considered as good and competitive?

The best thing is that at every race they start to give away participation medals to the drivers instead of podiums and points. Everyone is a winner....

Ever since they decided they want to run a budget racing series (even before official budget cap) the whole sport started to look like a kids show. This will take it to a whole new level of that.

Ban the engine suppliers then, chuck in a generic engine. There is no use to have suppliers in the sport if they are basically forced to curb themself, or being handicaped by the governing body.

Then take a look again at this sport. It is already highly regulated. Because a sport is by definition is something that is governed by rules. Rules create the sport, not vice versa.
It is the rules that create true competition.

So no, limiting the engines till they close or fix the loophole, is the most logical and fair, sport like solution.
Based on your wishes, it would be wild west, and a team would be seconds faster than the rest, the last teams will be seconds slower than the midfield, it would be chaos and zero true competition. It would be super boring.

And what you need to understand is that the intention of any rule in F1 and in sports in general is even more important than the rule itself.
Meaning, if they created that rule, thinking no engine shall have higher than 16:1 compression ratio, then even if they failed to write the rule well or create the perfect controlling, it is still against the intention of the rules if a team succeeds to overcome it.
Hence a change is inevitable. Either by changing the rule or the measurement. And till then, it is super easy to cap the max horsepower, as otherwise, teams that went agains the intention of the rule will have an unfair advantage.

As it goes for the sport itself - rules are specifically provided to make a framework for engineers to work on. The rules specify at what conditions measurements are made. Outside of those conditions is free territory. And legal. And those which are smart enough can and should exploit it. Period. They can close the loophole (which is their own failure in the first place) for the next season. Otherwise this is a completely unfair act against people who can think outside of the box, and a great gift to those that cant.

[etusch]

This is not a can and can't thing. Some people tend to follow rules and rule is obvious, some are not tend to follow rules and they are not trying to do thing in the rules. And when someone act against rule you can't say, there is no time to allow them to do thing correct, so they can be illegal. That is why there is something called punishment.

In this case you are saying that if you follow rules, you will be punished. And you are not saying "there is not enough time to allow you too to make a new engine which will work in illegal area which we called it as grey area and legalized it by using this name. There is not enough time you to do same, they don't have time to make a legal one, so you will be penalized, and illegal one will be prized by using it, plus I will call them as genius

[WardenOfTheNorth]

Surely the solution is simple. The FIA sticks to their line about how this is tested. The other PU manufacturers have to work to catch up (assuming this isn't balanced anyway by better electrical solutions from them) and the rules around allowing PU manufacturers to catch up would mean that any gaps get closed anyway.

All this does is give Honda, Audi and Ferrari an avenue to go down for better performance.

[WardenOfTheNorth]

I'm not going to pretend to understand the compression ratio stuff, but how is this tested?

Is it even feasible for the FIA to test it with the PU running at full temp?

[Badger]

This is not a can and can't thing. Some people tend to follow rules and rule is obvious, some are not tend to follow rules and they are not trying to do thing in the rules. And when someone act against rule you can't say, there is no time to allow them to do thing correct, so they can be illegal. That is why there is something called punishment.

In this case you are saying that if you follow rules, you will be punished. And you are not saying "there is not enough time to allow you too to make a new engine which will work in illegal area which we called it as grey area and legalized it by using this name. There is not enough time you to do same, they don't have time to make a legal one, so you will be penalized, and illegal one will be prized by using it, plus I will call them as genius

They're following the rules the same way they follow the rules when they design a flexi-wing that passes the static load test. The test is the way the rule is enforced. As you can clearly see rule C5.4.3 specifies that the measurement is done at ambient temperatures.

No cylinder of the engine may have a geometric compression ratio higher than 16.0. The procedure
to measure this value will be detailed by each PU Manufacturer according to the Guidance
Document FIA-F1-DOC-C042 and executed at ambient temperature. This procedure must be
approved by the FIA Technical Department and included in the PU Manufacturer homologation
dossier.

If the FIA didn't intend for compression ratios to exceed 16 at higher temperatures they should have written a better rule. At this stage it's probably too late.

[sucof]

This is not a can and can't thing. Some people tend to follow rules and rule is obvious, some are not tend to follow rules and they are not trying to do thing in the rules. And when someone act against rule you can't say, there is no time to allow them to do thing correct, so they can be illegal. That is why there is something called punishment.

In this case you are saying that if you follow rules, you will be punished. And you are not saying "there is not enough time to allow you too to make a new engine which will work in illegal area which we called it as grey area and legalized it by using this name. There is not enough time you to do same, they don't have time to make a legal one, so you will be penalized, and illegal one will be prized by using it, plus I will call them as genius

They're following the rules the same way they follow the rules when they design a flexi-wing that passes the static load test. The test is the way the rule is enforced. As you can clearly see rule C5.4.3 specifies that the measurement is done at ambient temperatures.

No cylinder of the engine may have a geometric compression ratio higher than 16.0. The procedure
to measure this value will be detailed by each PU Manufacturer according to the Guidance
Document FIA-F1-DOC-C042 and executed at ambient temperature. This procedure must be
approved by the FIA Technical Department and included in the PU Manufacturer homologation
dossier.

If the FIA didn't intend for compression ratios to exceed 16 at higher temperatures they should have written a better rule. At this stage it's too late and there's nothing the FIA can do for this season.

Of course they can. They can measure power, and set a max power limit for every manufacturer, till everyone is able to build an engine according to the same rules.
Easy.
And the FIA in the recent past made statements they will intervene when similar things will happen.
It will be sadly just politics which will decide how the FIA will react

[Badger]

This is not a can and can't thing. Some people tend to follow rules and rule is obvious, some are not tend to follow rules and they are not trying to do thing in the rules. And when someone act against rule you can't say, there is no time to allow them to do thing correct, so they can be illegal. That is why there is something called punishment.

In this case you are saying that if you follow rules, you will be punished. And you are not saying "there is not enough time to allow you too to make a new engine which will work in illegal area which we called it as grey area and legalized it by using this name. There is not enough time you to do same, they don't have time to make a legal one, so you will be penalized, and illegal one will be prized by using it, plus I will call them as genius

They're following the rules the same way they follow the rules when they design a flexi-wing that passes the static load test. The test is the way the rule is enforced. As you can clearly see rule C5.4.3 specifies that the measurement is done at ambient temperatures.

No cylinder of the engine may have a geometric compression ratio higher than 16.0. The procedure
to measure this value will be detailed by each PU Manufacturer according to the Guidance
Document FIA-F1-DOC-C042 and executed at ambient temperature. This procedure must be
approved by the FIA Technical Department and included in the PU Manufacturer homologation
dossier.

If the FIA didn't intend for compression ratios to exceed 16 at higher temperatures they should have written a better rule. At this stage it's too late and there's nothing the FIA can do for this season.

Of course they can. They can measure power, and set a max power limit for every manufacturer, till everyone is able to build an engine according to the same rules.
Easy.
And the FIA in the recent past made statements they will intervene when similar things will happen.
It will be sadly just politics which will decide how the FIA will react

Yeah, let's just stop the competition and give everyone spec engines. That wouldn't be political at all

Everyone is building an engine according to the same rules, it doesn't mean everyone will find the same solutions. That's the sport. You miss a trick you lose out.