Concept power units from 2030

[De Wet]

Personal preference is for more freedom when it comes to configurations and designs. They could mandate a single or twin turbo 2.0-2.5L ICE of any cylinder count and a crank located spec MGU-K of 200 hp and a manufacturer provided smaller battery (solid state allowed) only 30% of the current size that can be charged via braking on both axles (spec front axle generator only) and on throttle harvesting. Fully sustainable fuels with a defined corridor for energy density 30% higher than 26 capped at 80 kg per race. Aim for cars ~50kg lighter than now and an even smaller footprint.

Sustainable fuels costs are ridiculous... 2025 Cost = $18p/l... 2026 Cost = $250p/l.

[.poz]

Energy recovery under braking should be banned from F1.

Brake-by-Wire (BBW) already prevented drivers from using their full sensitivity to the limit.

I appreciate super-efficient engines that strive to extract every last drop of energy from the fuel, but regenerative braking and the heavy batteries it demands simply aren't right for F1.

I mean I understand where you’re coming from, but I disagree. The MGU-H is to me the best energy recovery device ever used in F1. Sure, it was expensive and overcomplicatdd, but it weighed in at like 4kg and harvested absurd amounts of energy compared to the tiny weight penalty, at no cost to the drivers. It was easily worth the weight and any concept for the fastest possible car should include it.

Still, there is no way to deploy from an MGU-H (except in an anti-lag capacity) without also having an MGU-K. If you have an MGU-K for deployment, you might aswell use it to regenerate energy as well. At that point you need a battery, even if it’s just a small one that lasts for 2-3 seconds to deploy everything you harvested after heavy braking.

I'm pro-MGU-H. I think mechanically splitting the turbo and compressor—one for energy recovery and the other driven by its own electric motor—would have significantly simplified the design.

No kinetic energy recovery under braking, and a small battery just large enough to buffer the energy from the MGU-H when it isn't being directly used by the MGU-K.

[wuzak]

I mean I understand where you’re coming from, but I disagree. The MGU-H is to me the best energy recovery device ever used in F1. Sure, it was expensive and overcomplicatdd, but it weighed in at like 4kg and harvested absurd amounts of energy compared to the tiny weight penalty, at no cost to the drivers. It was easily worth the weight and any concept for the fastest possible car should include it.

And they've replaced the complexity of the MGUH with the complexity of energy recovery for 2026.

[Stu]

A regular turbo with a separate GU-H (as Porsche used on the 919 prototype would work. I quite like the jeopardy with some of the teams being greedy with turbo size, while others take a more pragmatic approach.
The GU-H would allow for continuous harvesting and more consistent electric drive.
I do quite like the generator aspect being attempted currently, but cannot see anything other than a WEC style power management system working with the outputs as they currently stand.
For 2030 I would like to see more ICE design freedom (just a capacity limit & fuel flow limit) with the peripherals and electric staying the same.

[hollus]

Sustainable fuels costs are ridiculous... 2025 Cost = $18p/l... 2026 Cost = $250p/l.

Where are those numbers from?

Anyways, sustainable fuel is the most likely candidate to free you from your hated electricity gimmicks in the cars, choose your poison, I guess.

Taking 250$ per liter at face value, that is about 35000$ per car per weekend. It won't break the bank, these things are prototypes. Any chance that the Pirelli rubber comes at higher than 70 $/km?

[De Wet]

Sustainable fuels costs are ridiculous... 2025 Cost = $18p/l... 2026 Cost = $250p/l.

Where are those numbers from?

Anyways, sustainable fuel is the most likely candidate to free you from your hated electricity gimmicks in the cars, choose your poison, I guess.

Taking 250$ per liter at face value, that is about 35000$ per car per weekend. It won't break the bank, these things are prototypes. Any chance that the Pirelli rubber comes at higher than 70 $/km?

AI:

AI Overview
F1 2026 fuel costs are projected to skyrocket, with estimations showing a potential ten-fold increase from $22–$33 per liter to over
$170–$300+ per liter due to the transition to 100% advanced sustainable, synthetic fuels. Total team fuel bills could rise from ~$3–4 million to $10–12 million annually, prompting crisis talks to manage costs.

The Race:

Early projections had the price of fuel jumping from the current $22-$33 dollar per litre range up to around $170-$225 per litre.
However, one team boss suggested that he had been told the fuel could cost his team more than $300 per litre

[vorticism]

Those numbers are no surprise. I expect they're even higher. For the past decade one of the primary features of the synfuel topic has been its cost. Economies of scale, feedstocks, etc. It's not an argument for nor against--it's just the state of things. In the context of using it for F1, it does superficially conflict with interests in budget caps. Sponsors and other vested interests may like it as an advert or proving ground for the formulations.

Lowball estimates: 300 liters per weekend? Six grand to sixty grand. 100 grand becomes 1 million per year. Plus pre-season testing. Not insignificant when team budgets are measured in hundreds of millions, but not insurmountable either.

As for the MGUH: it was a primary component of the turbocompounding, which is now mostly gone (not fully, if you take Tommy's colorful rendition of any turbocharger as a fluidic turbocompound). Half thinking about this, I think it would have been better to retain the MGUH and reduce the size of the MGUK & ES, in order to render the turbocompounding as something moe like its mechanical origins--that or just demand mechanical turbocompounding and omit the electrical components. This would keep the ICE TE high, higher than an NA or turbocharged ICE, to facilitate continued use of an approximately race-completing 100kg fuel tank. LICO, superclipping, dancing around a 3 MJ/kg ES no more.

If refueling were to be reintroduced, a thousand other concepts could be pursued.

[gearboxtrouble]

I'd say keep it simple. The top end of the performance car market is pivoting back to ICE, sometimes even NA as full EV sports and supercars have flopped. Porsche abandoned its EV Boxster/Cayman replacement and Bugatti pivoted to a NA V16 because Rimac couldn't give away Neveras. Go with a 2.5L V8 NA formula using sustainable fuels with a small 50KW spec MGUK and battery purely for push to pass. Heck you could even bring back the H pattern gearbox with this formula. Abandon the push to increase TE and move the innovation focus to the fuels by uncapping the energy density and capping the fuel cost.

[haza]

Yes it’s another one of those topics however I’ve been thinking a lot about the direction f1 is heading with the power units why don’t the fia do what they’ve been doing with wec today and to a degree what f1 was already doing in the 90s let teams use there own preferred engines for example if Ferrari wanted to use a na v12 they can. Audi a hybrid? go for it. Ford a noisey v8 ? Crack on but all the engines must meet a certain capacity and power output eg (all engines must be x amount of litres producing no more than x amount of horsepower) and all run on sustainable biofuels it would certainly attract more manufacturers

[De Wet]

Yes it’s another one of those topics however I’ve been thinking a lot about the direction f1 is heading with the power units why don’t the fia do what they’ve been doing with wec today and to a degree what f1 was already doing in the 90s let teams use there own preferred engines for example if Ferrari wanted to use a na v12 they can. Audi a hybrid? go for it. Ford a noisey v8 ? Crack on but all the engines must meet a certain capacity and power output eg (all engines must be x amount of litres producing no more than x amount of horsepower) and all run on sustainable biofuels it would certainly attract more manufacturers

F1's biggest problem Is the manufacturers.

[Ferry]

That would be a small capacity, few cylinder, turbo, low-ish rpm engine? High efficiency, low noise, low fuel consumption = low weight. Like the engine from Porsche 919. Or the initial proposal for the 2014-engines. 1.6 litre, 4 cylinder inline.

[SealTheRealDeal]

Based on what MBS' discussions and announcements have indicated it'll be V8s (likely a return to the 2.4L format) and a simplified hybrid. Those V8s were a lot lighter than the turbo V6s we had/have, though they were rather short on low-end torque, which is why the measly 80hp of the KERS unit was actually quite impactful. If I understand correctly, the previous generation of MGUK and energy storage was actually pretty similar in mass to the KERS system, so something like that could pair with the 95kg V8 for a car that is still a lot more nimble than anything we've had since 2013 while providing a lot more power. Additionally I'm sure there's some neat tricks that can be used to make the V8s more potent, IIRC they didn't have variable intakes or pre-chamber ignition.

[gearboxtrouble]

Do we really need multiple threads to discuss the same thing? I shared this on the 2030 concept thread so re posting this here

I'd say keep it simple. The top end of the performance car market is pivoting back to ICE, sometimes even NA as full EV sports and supercars have flopped. Porsche abandoned its EV Boxster/Cayman replacement and Bugatti pivoted to a NA V16 because Rimac couldn't give away Neveras. Go with a 2.4L V8 NA formula using sustainable fuels with a small 50KW spec MGUK and super capacitor purely for push to pass. Target <90kg total PU mass. Heck you could even bring back the H pattern gearbox with this formula. Abandon the push to increase TE and move the innovation focus to the fuels by uncapping the energy density and capping the fuel cost. I'd argue that the path to road relevance if you're targeting where performance cars are headed is back to combustion. You might lose a few manufacturers (would bet on Honda leaving again) but I'm pretty confident Ferrari, RBPT/Ford and GM would welcome this switch and Mercedes and VAG could be made to come around as they see how poorly their EV switch has landed in the enthusiast market.

[Bence]

High efficiency, low noise, low fuel consumption... ...1.6 litre, 4 cylinder inline.

What a fascinating formula - like a fully dressed Prius posing as covergirl of Playboy! NO.

We could even spice it up with math tests the drivers have to solve while driving in reverse in utter silence. Don't take it as personal, but I don't think you understand superstimuli as one of Nature's most important behavior-modifying effect. Biological entities tend to show a preference for exaggerated stimulus properties (y'know; light, color, size, etc.). The animals (like we are) will favor the artificial, excessive stimulus over the naturally occurring one. So good luck if you want to find a fan base who are interested in low noise, low fuel consumption formula, AS THE #1, THE PINNACLE OF MOTOR RACING.

I certainly did not have sweaty nightmares let's say in '86, because the turbos were sucking in that toluol-based fuel like a tornado an entire froggy lake, but definitely got boners and saw crying people at the start of the races in the normally aspirated 3.5 V12/V10/V8 era. And NOT because of bloody ears, mind you.

So I'd take the old faithful Honda RA-005E Suzuka Special, dust it off a bit, overhaul it with some contemporary materials, and I'd shoehorn all of its 88 kilograms into a (sacrilege!) Ferrari F2004. Slap a halo on it and enjoy! The perfect race car - for me at least. Imagine 22 of it starting a race (with foot clutches, just to honor Jean Alesi) and you would feel that your soul wants to depart your body, because the entire county is shaking underfoot; so you'd understand superstimuli in that exact precious second without any explanation.

Anyone, who doesn't understand the being(ness), the existence of such cars as the Huayra R, the FXX Ferraris, a 4-5-6-rotor Wankel, the above mentioned Honda V10s, the classic 65° Tipo 041 V12 or the 75° Tipo 043 Honrari V12, well, that someone is missing out the entirety of that unimaginable sensory fascination these engines once provided.

[vorticism]

It would have been interesting to see exhaust blowing permitted in the last aero regulations set. From any engine, although an NA V8 would have fit nicely. Even a ten or twelve cylinder would have fit within the same footprint by shortening the long transmission housing i.e. the rear cylinders would have occupied the turbocharger/bellhousing volume. . If refueling was reintroduced then we'd have Formula One Pro.