Possible solutions to improve the 2026 Engine Regulations

[bananapeel23]

2 liter v8+Turbo +syntetic fuels (no limit on fuel flow rate)+ hybrid system like today's but more battery capacity

2 liter turbo v8 with unlimited fuel flow would be absolutely insane. The best of the 1.5L turbo engines in the 1980s produced up to 1400 horsepower in quali. Modern materials would push that to 2000+.

[gearboxtrouble]

Increase the fuel flow to get more ICE power and reduce the MGU-K output to compensate. Give them as much power as needed to be able to still finish the race when starting with full fuel tanks. This can be done without any mechanical changes.

Not true. To eliminate superclipping and lift and coast you'd need to get to a 70-80% ICE contribution. That's a 25-30% increase in fuel flow which would require bigger fuel tanks, ~20+ kg of weight and a complete redesign of combustion and fuel system parts. Its obviously doable but we're talking about some major design changes on both the ICE and chassis side that can't happen until 2027. 2026 is pretty much lost imo - best they can do is a <5% fuel flow boost and a variable MGU-K cap depending on available brake energy at every track but they need to decide on 27 asap so that teams and manufacturers are able to start work on what would be a major rules change.

[FNTC]

I wasnt saying that it would magically solve everything, just make it slightly better than the circus we have today. If the fuel tanks are too small, then they could just reduce the MGU-K output and accept slower laptimes, but less superclipping. Which they might do:

[gearboxtrouble]

The bottom line for any changes from 27 onward should be no harvesting outside of brake events. They should even block that at the ECU level. The rest of the parameters will fall into place once you set that as the goal. 26 they'll just have to do the best they can with the limitations of the current ICE and fuel system.

[FNTC]

The bottom line for any changes from 27 onward should be no harvesting outside of brake events. They should even block that at the ECU level. The rest of the parameters will fall into place once you set that as the goal. 26 they'll just have to do the best they can with the limitations of the current ICE and fuel system.

With only harvesting while braking, you would have even less battery power available I would think, and 0 MGU-K power on maybe half the straight, but not negative MGU-K power at the end it of it? Maybe it would be better, not sure.

[gearboxtrouble]

The bottom line for any changes from 27 onward should be no harvesting outside of brake events. They should even block that at the ECU level. The rest of the parameters will fall into place once you set that as the goal. 26 they'll just have to do the best they can with the limitations of the current ICE and fuel system.

With only harvesting while braking, you would have even less battery power available I would think, and 0 MGU-K power on maybe half the straight, but not negative MGU-K power at the end it of it? Maybe it would be better, not sure.

Thats where the parameters come in. For 26 you can't really do much with fuel flow but if you lowered the max MGU-K power to whatever it needs to be at every race to make the battery last through 100% of the full throttle events you at least eliminate energy starvation and bring the drivers' agency back. Yeah the cars would be much slower at places like Monza but I would rather see genuine race cars again even if they produced F2 laptimes. For 27 onward there's enough time to redesign the ICE and the cars to bring back ~1000 hp on demand through boosting the ICE to make up for the lost MGU-K power. ~800 hp should be doable through increased fuel flows, higher compression ratios and increased boost limits. That should allow for an ECU block on non brake harvesting.

[JordanMugen]

That should allow for an ECU block on non brake harvesting.

Harvesting on part throttle is also acceptable.

The issue is they went to these stupid rules to entice 3 more manufacturers into the sport: Honda, Cadillac and Audi.

Is it 100% certain that Cadillac prefers a large hybrid component? Their WEC car literally has a 5.5L naturally aspirated V8.

[gearboxtrouble]

That should allow for an ECU block on non brake harvesting.

Harvesting on part throttle is also acceptable.

The issue is they went to these stupid rules to entice 3 more manufacturers into the sport: Honda, Cadillac and Audi.

Is it 100% certain that Cadillac prefers a large hybrid component? Their WEC car literally has a 5.5L naturally aspirated V8.

Maybe but I think it would be simpler to ban that as well as it could provide a backdoor to traction control. GM definitely prefers less hybrid more ICE. I recently bought a CT5-V blackwing to replace my long time E63 AMG and I can assure you there is nothing hybrid about its powertrain. They're in the process of releasing an all new 6.6L V8 small block.

[bananapeel23]

Thats where the parameters come in. For 26 you can't really do much with fuel flow but if you lowered the max MGU-K power to whatever it needs to be at every race to make the battery last through 100% of the full throttle events you at least eliminate energy starvation and bring the drivers' agency back. Yeah the cars would be much slower at places like Monza but I would rather see genuine race cars again even if they produced F2 laptimes. For 27 onward there's enough time to redesign the ICE and the cars to bring back ~1000 hp on demand through boosting the ICE to make up for the lost MGU-K power. ~800 hp should be doable through increased fuel flows, higher compression ratios and increased boost limits. That should allow for an ECU block on non brake harvesting.

If an 800 horsepower ICE is what you want, the old V6 turbo hybrid should just be brought back and be retrofitted with the current MGU-K.

Realistically though, I think even a 650 or 700 horsepower ICE would work for these cars if superclipping was banned or restricted to much lower rates. (But at that point it’s just a parasitic MGU-H emulator)

[gearboxtrouble]

Thats where the parameters come in. For 26 you can't really do much with fuel flow but if you lowered the max MGU-K power to whatever it needs to be at every race to make the battery last through 100% of the full throttle events you at least eliminate energy starvation and bring the drivers' agency back. Yeah the cars would be much slower at places like Monza but I would rather see genuine race cars again even if they produced F2 laptimes. For 27 onward there's enough time to redesign the ICE and the cars to bring back ~1000 hp on demand through boosting the ICE to make up for the lost MGU-K power. ~800 hp should be doable through increased fuel flows, higher compression ratios and increased boost limits. That should allow for an ECU block on non brake harvesting.

If an 800 horsepower ICE is what you want, the old V6 turbo hybrid should just be brought back and be retrofitted with the current MGU-K.

Realistically though, I think even a 650 or 700 horsepower ICE would work for these cars if superclipping was banned or restricted to much lower rates. (But at that point it’s just a parasitic MGU-H emulator)

800 hp isn't what I "want" its what we need to eliminate harvesting outside of braking events. It would allow ~200 hp of electrical deployment for nearly all of the full throttle events over the whole season. I don't think its too difficult to boost the current ICE to 800 hp in time for the 2027 season. Remove the homologation and grant enough development time to the manufacturers and I'm sure you could find another 250 hp from fuel flow, compression and slightly more boost. Bringing back the 25 ICEs is not feasible because RBPT and Audi don't have one. They'll just have to modify the current ones.

[NL_Fer]

More fuel flow basicly means redesign the ICE from scratch. Only reducing the MGU- K output, we end up with GP2 engines.

We are pretty screwed.

Less harvesting is going to make the problems worse. They are now already braking early and taking corners slower, just to recover more energy to use it on straights. To have them race flat out again, we need more energy available and less options to recover by driving slower or braking early.

[Bence]

2 liter turbo v8 with unlimited fuel flow would be absolutely insane. The best of the 1.5L turbo engines in the 1980s produced up to 1400 horsepower in quali. Modern materials would push that to 2000+.

In the 80s they would have called it "normal qualifying power to weight ratio". Today's world is a touchy, little, unripe, fear-based lukewarm thing.

[bananapeel23]

Thats where the parameters come in. For 26 you can't really do much with fuel flow but if you lowered the max MGU-K power to whatever it needs to be at every race to make the battery last through 100% of the full throttle events you at least eliminate energy starvation and bring the drivers' agency back. Yeah the cars would be much slower at places like Monza but I would rather see genuine race cars again even if they produced F2 laptimes. For 27 onward there's enough time to redesign the ICE and the cars to bring back ~1000 hp on demand through boosting the ICE to make up for the lost MGU-K power. ~800 hp should be doable through increased fuel flows, higher compression ratios and increased boost limits. That should allow for an ECU block on non brake harvesting.

If an 800 horsepower ICE is what you want, the old V6 turbo hybrid should just be brought back and be retrofitted with the current MGU-K.

Realistically though, I think even a 650 or 700 horsepower ICE would work for these cars if superclipping was banned or restricted to much lower rates. (But at that point it’s just a parasitic MGU-H emulator)

800 hp isn't what I "want" its what we need to eliminate harvesting outside of braking events. It would allow ~200 hp of electrical deployment for nearly all of the full throttle events over the whole season. I don't think its too difficult to boost the current ICE to 800 hp in time for the 2027 season. Remove the homologation and grant enough development time to the manufacturers and I'm sure you could find another 250 hp from fuel flow, compression and slightly more boost. Bringing back the 25 ICEs is not feasible because RBPT and Audi don't have one. They'll just have to modify the current ones.

You can't run these cars at 1000 horsepower constantly due to the fundamentally low drag/downforce concept and active aero. They would be hitting 400 km/h down the straights and all the crash structures would need to be fundamentally redesigned to allow for it.

The cars not deploying all the time is fine. Bring ICE power up to ~700 horsepower and the deployment dropoff curve would need to be adjusted downwards regardless, perhaps beginning at 260 km/h and ending at 315 instead of the current 290/345. This would save a lot of battery power and allow more deployment at low speed, while reducing the need for 9 MJ of harvesting, and thus superclipping.

[V10FURY]

My recommendation for the next formula would be: 3 liter V-8 engines for 2029, 16:1 A/F ratio, 15,000 rev limit, synthetic fuels , no fuel flow limit, zero hybrid crap. 5 engine per season limit before penalty. Of course this will never happen.

So like a ~110 kg PU putting out 800 horsepower while hauling like 180 kg of fuel. Combined with awful torque because NA and no ERS for additional torque. The lack of ERS also requires a return to DRS and boring passes. This is made even worse by capping revs to a measly 15000 RPM, meaning they won’t even be particularly fun to listen to.

If you suggest NA, revs should be unlimited and the displacement should be fairly small to encourage low weight. Capping revs and increasing displacement just removes the best avenue for engine development, since the engines would be limited primarily by the amount of air they can get into the cylinder. More revs is the best way around that, so power is most easily improved by increasing revs.

I mean I’m against full NA in general, but high displacement, low rev NA is particularly dumb due to having all of the drawbacks and none of the advantages. If you want full NA it should be a small displacement, fuel flow limited (albeit a high limit, like 140 kg/hr), uncapped rev V8 or V10.

That creates different development paths, an efficiency incentive in the form of combustion efficiency and a lot of noise from high revs. What you propose is something worse than the gimped and rev-capped 3L V10 that Toro Rosso was allowed to use in 2006.

With the current technology my engine would be :

3 liter V8
900 horsepower
450 NM torque
strong torque
usable powerband
no reliance on ERS

V8 Weight 110kg
Flat-plane V8
15k rpm
short stroke
Fuel weight 130kg max needed for races
Car total dry weight 705kg

This set up still screams and sounds far better than current F1 crap.
900 horsepower still keeps a very strong top-end
and you don’t need a 19k rpm for it to feel special. A lower rpm limit also keeps costs down and might actually get a manufacturer like Cosworth back into F1.

Yes you will need a bigger fuel tank than the current one if you don’t allow refueling again, which I would love to see. I am sure the fuel companies would also prefer refueling for advertising as well. But even without it my car formula would be lighter than the current cars, which most on the grid can’t even get to the minimum weight.

No battery, turbo charger, electric motor, mguk, wiring etc. No super clipping , lift and coasting , yo yo racing and weird Ai deployment out of the drivers control.

There is no need for DRS or Kers, Instead of ERS, you could simply run a proximity-based “party mode.”
If you’re within 1 second:
AFR change
ignition advances
intake switches to max airflow
rev limit bumps ~+ 750 rpm
Net gain: 30~40hp for ~10–seconds
No batteries. No deployment maps. No gimmicks.
Just a harder-running engine when you’re close enough to attack.
It keeps overtakes possible, but puts the control back in the driver’s hands instead of an energy system. However it comes at the cost of engine life so it must be used wisely.

This car would be around .5-1.5 seconds slower than the current cars on pace, and in qualifying a bit closer. But they would more fun to drive, sound incredible, be more predictable for the drivers , easier to package and balance allowing a lighter base car, and most importantly allow good close racing with these aero regulations , active wings still intact. Just an engine change for 2029 also helps lower the money needed to be spent on the switch.


3 liter V8 makes the most sense to me for packaging , weight, power density, torque production, costs, while still able to produce a great noise at 15,000 rpm with a flat plane crank. It might also allow a company like Cosworth back on the grid which would be great to see. Like I said earlier they won’t do this formula, and will continue down this hybrid nonsense road for sure.

[AR3-GP]

Temporary solution to eliminate clipping, limiting the delivery power to 200kW and using the recovery power at 350kW (OK for C5.12.4).
No clipping but power limitation below 200kW on some curves.