Formula 1 teams will hold a crunch summit on Thursday to discuss potential changes to the 2026 engine regulations amid fears that cars will repeatedly run out of energy.
The new rules are less than a year away, yet talks to refine and improve the 2026 regulations are ongoing between F1, the FIA, the teams and the engine manufacturers. F1 plans to ditch the 1.6L V6 turbo-hybrid power units introduced in 2014 for a simplified engine next season.
But fears remain over the likelihood of drivers having to lift and coast much earlier down the straights to harvest energy with the intended increase from the 80/20 combustion/electrical power split to a 50/50 share. So, a summit this Thursday is aimed at addressing the concern.
Talks already took place before the Bahrain Grand Prix about potential changes to F1’s 2026 engine regulations. Among the proposals was FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem’s idea to possibly scrap the 2026 regulations, but F1 teams have rejected returning to V10 engines.
Gary Anderson suggests front axle harvesting could fix the energy regeneration fears with F1’s 2026 engine regulations
Energy harvesting remains a big issue among some F1 teams, though, as there are concerns that the 2026 cars will not regenerate enough energy to deploy the battery as much as they want. There are even fears they could run out of energy halfway down Monza’s pit straight.
So, Gary Anderson has suggested an easy fix to the harvesting issue would be to allow cars to also regain energy with the front axle. The 2026 regulations only allow for rear harvesting using the MGU-K and the rear brakes, but that only denotes 22% of the total braking energy.
READ MORE: Everything you need to know about F1’s 2026 engine and chassis regulations
Anderson notes that F1 has so far opposed any type of front axle harvesting as the ‘worry’ is Audi may stand to gain a big advantage over their rivals when the German automotive giants take over Sauber next year. But the ex-Jordan technical director has an easy fix for that fear.
Anderson has suggested via The Race: “The reason for not adapting some level of front axle harvesting is the potential weight addition and, on top of that, the worry that incoming Audi could be well ahead of the current F1 power unit manufacturers with its experience of the technology from its years in the World Endurance Championship.
“That worry could be eliminated by allowing the front axle harvesting system to be a bought-in component and allowing Audi to be one of the suppliers.”
F1 could avoid Audi having an unfair advantage in 2026, but car weight remains a big issue
There would be some obvious drawbacks with introducing front axle harvesting to the 2026 F1 regulations at this stage. Yet F1, the FIA, the teams and the engine manufacturers remain in talks about the imminent new rules, so there might be scope to introduce it in some way.
Certainly, allowing Audi to produce a spec part that other teams can buy would help to ease any fears of the current Sauber squad having an unfair advantage. But even that may not be as ideal as F1 would want, given Audi will have to develop the system before handing it out.
The extra weight a front axle harvesting system would add to the cars is also a key issue that could rule it out from being added to the 2026 regulations. F1’s plan for the new rules is for cars to lose 30kg from the weight limit to a minimum of 768kg to help to improve the racing.
Leave feedback about this