2026 Drama: Alleged engine loophole

[richardn]

Nobody seems to have analysed what Nikolas Tombazis actually said:

“We felt it was feasible, because we felt there wasn’t any discussion of anything illegal. We think people have spent time designing their engines and solutions,” he said. “We didn’t feel it was fair to do something for the start of the season.

“We felt it was wrong, but we also didn’t feel it was something as it was beyond what we felt was the intention of the rules.

“We felt it was correct to also not let it go on too much. There’s a degree of subjectivity there. I can’t say that is the only solution that a human can think of, but we felt it was a balanced approach; as I say, ultimately, we haven’t decided anything.

“We’ve decided to, after a lot of discussions, to launch this vote. The result of the vote will determine whether that thing happens or not.

“If the vote gets approved by the PU manufacturers and by the World Council, then the engines that run from August onwards will have to be legal to that parameter.

“If somebody is beyond that level in Melbourne, then they will have to make adjustments. But I don’t want to comment on what people’s technical solutions are in Melbourne, but I do also stress that I think this matter isn’t really something that is anywhere near as important as people make out.”

I've bolded what I think are the important bits. If it wasn't beyond the intention of the rules, then it wasn't delivering more than 16:1 when hot, surely?

On the other hand it is "wrong". This implies to me the Merc engine used thermal expansion to seal a small chamber somewhere to restore 16:1 from the 15.2:1 it would otherwise be. If the solution used thermal expansion without a second chamber, then it would just be clever and they probably wouldn't say it was wrong.

What isn't clear is if the maximum CR on the hot test will be 16:1 or some value between 15.2:1 and 16:1. If it's 16:1 then it's a massive win for Mercedes as the other manufacturers need to recreate what they did. If it's less than 16:1, then "We felt it was correct to also not let it go on too much" and "degree of subjectivity there" come in to play.

[chrisc90]

Could there be something done to the injector that allows it?

[LM10]

“We felt it was feasible, because we felt there wasn’t any discussion of anything illegal. We think people have spent time designing their engines and solutions,” he said. “We didn’t feel it was fair to do something for the start of the season.

You’ll never see the FIA openly talk about something being illegal.

“We felt it was wrong, but we also didn’t feel it was something as it was beyond what we felt was the intention of the rules.

He says that it was beyond what they felt was the intention of the rules.
How I interpret it is that they didn’t want to declare it illegal, but also not legal. But is this really the surprising part? Has Mercedes in the recent past ever not gotten the chance to continue using their advantage for the whole season?

This time it’s the same. The FIA feels it would be unfair to ban this CR trick right away because poor Mercedes have spent time designing their engine.

Translation: We definitely don’t want to ban it for this season (as we also didn’t in the past when it was Mercedes), but we’re under pressure by all the other manufactures this time so we will go for a vote. This will put us in a neutral position.

[richardn]

He says that it was beyond what they felt was the intention of the rules.

That isn't what he said at all.

"We felt it was wrong, but we also didn’t feel it was something as it was beyond what we felt was the intention of the rules."

I think they missed commas in the quote, which makes it hard to parse, but he can only be saying that they didn't feel it was something beyond what they felt was the intention of the rules.

If the FIA doesn't like to openly talk about something being illegal, then why say "there wasn't any discussion of anything illegal"? He is either lying, or there was no discussion of anything illegal.

[LM10]

He says that it was beyond what they felt was the intention of the rules.

That isn't what he said at all.

"We felt it was wrong, but we also didn’t feel it was something as it was beyond what we felt was the intention of the rules."

I think they missed commas in the quote, which makes it hard to parse, but he can only be saying that they didn't feel it was something beyond what they felt was the intention of the rules.

If the FIA doesn't like to openly talk about something being illegal, then why say "there wasn't any discussion of anything illegal"? He is either lying, or there was no discussion of anything illegal.

If the FIA's opinion was that it was not beyond the intention of the rules, then we would not have anything more to discuss because in that case the FIA would simply declare it legal and close this topic. They're the governing body and it's their rule.

A couple of weeks ago there was an interview in which Tombazis for the first time spoke about this matter. He said that what they wanted with these new regulations (decreasing the compression ratio from 18:1 to 16:1) was to attract newcomers. They wanted the newcomers to join the sport on a fair-playing-field (especially with the budget cap in mind).
Talking about the weak areas of new rules, he said, quote: "It's invariable that amongst those many thousands [the engineers in the teams] that sometimes they will come up with something that nobody else thought.". Another quote: "When regulations change a lot, a lot of unforeseen circumstances come about."
What's more, he said that they want this to be a championship of best drivers and best engineers, but not the smartest rule interpreters.

So especially looking at the bold parts, in my opinion it's pretty clear that their intention in fact was NOT the compression ratio to be increased by smart rule interpretation while it's foremost intention was to attract newcomers.

[ScottB]

Could certainly argue best engineer / smartest rule interpreter is often the same thing, I mean, much of what the cars do is to defy regulations, or certainly the intended goal of them, in the quest to go quicker.

Which isn't to say that some things should be clarified or even banned, but, F1 is a constructor championship, teams are always going to cook up things that exploit gaps and loopholes in the rules.

[bluechris]

Could certainly argue best engineer / smartest rule interpreter is often the same thing, I mean, much of what the cars do is to defy regulations, or certainly the intended goal of them, in the quest to go quicker.

Which isn't to say that some things should be clarified or even banned, but, F1 is a constructor championship, teams are always going to cook up things that exploit gaps and loopholes in the rules.

There are teams that are indeed innovating (example Ferrari rear wing and many other examples for 2026) , and teams that are "innovating" and get away with ruling from next year or half year as it seems for 2026.
We all know who is who and who has the political power after all this year's following F1.

[Frank73]

Could certainly argue best engineer / smartest rule interpreter is often the same thing, I mean, much of what the cars do is to defy regulations, or certainly the intended goal of them, in the quest to go quicker.

Which isn't to say that some things should be clarified or even banned, but, F1 is a constructor championship, teams are always going to cook up things that exploit gaps and loopholes in the rules.

Well, in a general sense you are right, but in the "best man" point of view you are not. These tricks are NOT technology. Whether it is down to on-purpose thermal expansion or double chamber, these solutions are tricks to cheat a rule. They are not generally valuable and nobody would use them if not for cheating a rule. This not engineering. Smartest rule interpreter is often most effective F1 car developer, not best engineer. Best engineer is the one that finds the most broad-range useful solutions.

[ScottB]

Could certainly argue best engineer / smartest rule interpreter is often the same thing, I mean, much of what the cars do is to defy regulations, or certainly the intended goal of them, in the quest to go quicker.

Which isn't to say that some things should be clarified or even banned, but, F1 is a constructor championship, teams are always going to cook up things that exploit gaps and loopholes in the rules.

Well, in a general sense you are right, but in the "best man" point of view you are not. These tricks are NOT technology. Whether it is down to on-purpose thermal expansion or double chamber, these solutions are tricks to cheat a rule. They are not generally valuable and nobody would use them if not for cheating a rule. This not engineering. Smartest rule interpreter is often most effective F1 car developer, not best engineer. Best engineer is the one that finds the most broad-range useful solutions.

I'd say the job of an F1 engineer is to produce the fastest car, no? There's not broad application for most of this stuff because of the nature of F1's ever tightening regulations, there's no road relevance, or ABS style innovation happening now, it's all dancing round the edges of legality boxes and wording to find advantage.

You can consider that a good thing, or not, of course, from a moral standpoint or otherwise, but ultimately, if it makes the car faster, and is deemed legal, it's a good, or certainly, successful, piece of engineering / design / technology etc.

[LM10]

Could certainly argue best engineer / smartest rule interpreter is often the same thing, I mean, much of what the cars do is to defy regulations, or certainly the intended goal of them, in the quest to go quicker.

Which isn't to say that some things should be clarified or even banned, but, F1 is a constructor championship, teams are always going to cook up things that exploit gaps and loopholes in the rules.

Teams will always exploit loopholes, yes, and this is also what Tombazis said when mentioning the thousands of engineers, but the question about the intention of the rules will remain. And in case of compression ratio in my opinion it's crystal clear what the intention was.

Also, best engineers are not necessarily the ones looking for grey areas, though I know that it's the nature of engineers to look for some. But the SF26 is a good example - neither the blown rear wing/diffuser nor the rotating rear wing was done by exploiting a loophole. It was making best use of written rules.

[dialtone]

Could certainly argue best engineer / smartest rule interpreter is often the same thing, I mean, much of what the cars do is to defy regulations, or certainly the intended goal of them, in the quest to go quicker.

Which isn't to say that some things should be clarified or even banned, but, F1 is a constructor championship, teams are always going to cook up things that exploit gaps and loopholes in the rules.

Well, in a general sense you are right, but in the "best man" point of view you are not. These tricks are NOT technology. Whether it is down to on-purpose thermal expansion or double chamber, these solutions are tricks to cheat a rule. They are not generally valuable and nobody would use them if not for cheating a rule. This not engineering. Smartest rule interpreter is often most effective F1 car developer, not best engineer. Best engineer is the one that finds the most broad-range useful solutions.

I'd say the job of an F1 engineer is to produce the fastest car, no? There's not broad application for most of this stuff because of the nature of F1's ever tightening regulations, there's no road relevance, or ABS style innovation happening now, it's all dancing round the edges of legality boxes and wording to find advantage.

You can consider that a good thing, or not, of course, from a moral standpoint or otherwise, but ultimately, if it makes the car faster, and is deemed legal, it's a good, or certainly, successful, piece of engineering / design / technology etc.

We can argue about many things but Tombazis was very clear: “We don’t want a rule interpretation championship”.

There is no question that both Ferrari innovations, while maybe not road relevant, are definitely not a stretch of interpretation, they fit the rules naturally and some teams even said the inverted wing was part of some of their experiments.

Having some trickery in the engine to have higher compression ratio than the rules practically allow by working around the test… well that’s some rule interpretation championship stuff.

And to further this up, the aero stuff is up there in the open, while the engine stuff is all secret. I remember teams having a lot of problems and threatening lawsuits if FIA didn’t come clean on the engine trick from Ferrari, all fans outraged, reminding again, a trick that FIA couldn’t figure out despite sensors and seizing an engine for months, so practically no proof anything was happening and it was all speculation after 2 years of looking into it. And again the music has changed huh?

[ScottB]

Could certainly argue best engineer / smartest rule interpreter is often the same thing, I mean, much of what the cars do is to defy regulations, or certainly the intended goal of them, in the quest to go quicker.

Which isn't to say that some things should be clarified or even banned, but, F1 is a constructor championship, teams are always going to cook up things that exploit gaps and loopholes in the rules.

Teams will always exploit loopholes, yes, and this is also what Tombazis said when mentioning the thousands of engineers, but the question about the intention of the rules will remain. And in case of compression ratio in my opinion it's crystal clear what the intention was.

Also, best engineers are not necessarily the ones looking for grey areas, though I know that it's the nature of engineers to look for some. But the SF26 is a good example - neither the blown rear wing/diffuser nor the rotating rear wing was done by exploiting a loophole. It was making best use of written rules.

Loopholes are badly written rules, ultimately, as is assigning 'intent' to black and white legal documents. The 'macarena' rear wing is a good example of that; did the FIA 'intend' for the teams to run with an upside down rear wing? Probably not, but that doesn't matter, because whether they thought of it or not, the rules allowed it, and well done to someone at Ferrari that really thought outside the box on that one!

[ScottB]

Well, in a general sense you are right, but in the "best man" point of view you are not. These tricks are NOT technology. Whether it is down to on-purpose thermal expansion or double chamber, these solutions are tricks to cheat a rule. They are not generally valuable and nobody would use them if not for cheating a rule. This not engineering. Smartest rule interpreter is often most effective F1 car developer, not best engineer. Best engineer is the one that finds the most broad-range useful solutions.

I'd say the job of an F1 engineer is to produce the fastest car, no? There's not broad application for most of this stuff because of the nature of F1's ever tightening regulations, there's no road relevance, or ABS style innovation happening now, it's all dancing round the edges of legality boxes and wording to find advantage.

You can consider that a good thing, or not, of course, from a moral standpoint or otherwise, but ultimately, if it makes the car faster, and is deemed legal, it's a good, or certainly, successful, piece of engineering / design / technology etc.

We can argue about many things but Tombazis was very clear: “We don’t want a rule interpretation championship”.

There is no question that both Ferrari innovations, while maybe not road relevant, are definitely not a stretch of interpretation, they fit the rules naturally and some teams even said the inverted wing was part of some of their experiments.

Having some trickery in the engine to have higher compression ratio than the rules practically allow by working around the test… well that’s some rule interpretation championship stuff.

And to further this up, the aero stuff is up there in the open, while the engine stuff is all secret. I remember teams having a lot of problems and threatening lawsuits if FIA didn’t come clean on the engine trick from Ferrari, all fans outraged, reminding again, a trick that FIA couldn’t figure out despite sensors and seizing an engine for months, so practically no proof anything was happening and it was all speculation after 2 years of looking into it. And again the music has changed huh?

Personally, I like all the loophole type stuff, it's interesting, Double Axis Steering etc etc. If the FIA want to then ban it, yeah, fair enough, 'it's a fair cop, guv' type response and we all move on is also fine.

There is a line between exploiting a loophole and potentially cheating, but in a sense that's largely decided by how the FIA react to it, rather than an absolute, hard line. If they tell a team something is legit, they're obviously going to crack on until told otherwise.

[dialtone]

Could certainly argue best engineer / smartest rule interpreter is often the same thing, I mean, much of what the cars do is to defy regulations, or certainly the intended goal of them, in the quest to go quicker.

Which isn't to say that some things should be clarified or even banned, but, F1 is a constructor championship, teams are always going to cook up things that exploit gaps and loopholes in the rules.

Teams will always exploit loopholes, yes, and this is also what Tombazis said when mentioning the thousands of engineers, but the question about the intention of the rules will remain. And in case of compression ratio in my opinion it's crystal clear what the intention was.

Also, best engineers are not necessarily the ones looking for grey areas, though I know that it's the nature of engineers to look for some. But the SF26 is a good example - neither the blown rear wing/diffuser nor the rotating rear wing was done by exploiting a loophole. It was making best use of written rules.

Loopholes are badly written rules, ultimately, as is assigning 'intent' to black and white legal documents. The 'macarena' rear wing is a good example of that; did the FIA 'intend' for the teams to run with an upside down rear wing? Probably not, but that doesn't matter, because whether they thought of it or not, the rules allowed it, and well done to someone at Ferrari that really thought outside the box on that one!

Read the rules, they absolutely intended for that to happen.

They made changes specifically around when the bounded boxes are checked for wing compliance (i.e. not in SL Mode), added a time limit to the movement of the wing and so on.

The rule explicitly allow more freedom on movable aero, Tombazis said they wanted to incentivize lower drag solutions.

Ferrari worked with what the rules were giving everyone.

[Frank73]

Could certainly argue best engineer / smartest rule interpreter is often the same thing, I mean, much of what the cars do is to defy regulations, or certainly the intended goal of them, in the quest to go quicker.

Which isn't to say that some things should be clarified or even banned, but, F1 is a constructor championship, teams are always going to cook up things that exploit gaps and loopholes in the rules.

Well, in a general sense you are right, but in the "best man" point of view you are not. These tricks are NOT technology. Whether it is down to on-purpose thermal expansion or double chamber, these solutions are tricks to cheat a rule. They are not generally valuable and nobody would use them if not for cheating a rule. This not engineering. Smartest rule interpreter is often most effective F1 car developer, not best engineer. Best engineer is the one that finds the most broad-range useful solutions.

I'd say the job of an F1 engineer is to produce the fastest car, no? There's not broad application for most of this stuff because of the nature of F1's ever tightening regulations, there's no road relevance, or ABS style innovation happening now, it's all dancing round the edges of legality boxes and wording to find advantage.

You can consider that a good thing, or not, of course, from a moral standpoint or otherwise, but ultimately, if it makes the car faster, and is deemed legal, it's a good, or certainly, successful, piece of engineering / design / technology etc.

Truly clever engineering is going to be valuable for a long time, tricks are not. Last two years McLaren is an example of this: they did not rely on any trick (maybe a bit a bit on flexy wings, but they were not the only ones and in any case it was not a new finding in the toolbox of tricks). Also I think many very capable engineers won't figure out tricks maybe because in the back of their mind they rule out exploring territories that are subject to political interpretation and uncertain discretion. Trickery is a game that has to do with political ability as much as with creativity and cleverness.