Formula One is under increasing pressure to consider immediate changes and the long-term future of its new engines, with the world champion, Lando Norris, reiterating after the Miami Grand Prix that the only answer to address the sport-wide dissatisfaction was to “get rid of the battery”.
At the race in Florida, which was won by Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli, with Norris second, F1 and the FIA had brought in fresh regulations to address unhappiness and safety concerns prompted by the pivotal role energy management plays under the new 2026 formula.
There has been widespread criticism of the formula – which employs almost a 50-50 split between the internal combustion engine (ICE) and electrical energy. And while the adjustments to mitigate the issues which came in this weekend were considered successful, the long-term distaste remains, as Norris noted.
“It’s a small step in the right direction but it’s not to the level that Formula One should still be at yet,” he said. “If you go flat out everywhere and you try pushing like you were in previous years you still just get penalised for it. You still can’t be flat out everywhere. You should never get penalised for that kind of thing and you still do.
“Honestly, I don’t really think you can fix that. You just have to get rid of the battery. So hopefully in a few years, that’s the case.”
Norris’s opinions were echoed by his McLaren teammate, Oscar Piastri, who pointedly noted that, for all the tweaks to the rules, it was the fundamental way the engines were designed to operate that was the problem.
“The collaboration again from the FIA and F1 has been good, but there’s only so many things you can change with the hardware we have,” he said. “So some changes in the future are still needed for sure. How quickly we can do it is the big question.”
Piastri’s position is understood to be popularly supported within the sport where there is general agreement for reducing the role of the electrical energy and increasing that of the combustion engine. However even given what is considered to be a relatively straightforward hardware redesign that would increase the fuel flow to the engine, there would have to be agreement from the teams and engine manufacturers as soon as the Canadian Grand Prix in three weeks in order for it to be adopted for next season.
Over the weekend in Miami the FIA president, Mohammed Ben Sulayem, said he believed that F1 would in future drop the current V6 hybrid engines and return to using V8s with “minor electrification”. The V8s which were most recently used between 2006 and 2013 were light, relatively simple and very loud, and would run as the current engines do on fully sustainable fuel. “V8 is coming,” he said.
Ben Sulayem quoted a timetable of introducing it by 2030 or 2031 however the immediate focus remains on whether a short-term change to the engine regulations can be agreed. Mercedes, who have the best engine on the grid, considered the proposal worth considering, although the team principal, Toto Wolff, intimated it would not be in time for next year.
“Can we tweak it and optimise it in the midterm? Absolutely,” he said. “We will never be against making the show even better. We could extract a bit more performance out of the ICE, great. Give us enough lead time so we can actually do it.
“From a Mercedes standpoint, we are open to new engine regulations. We love V8s. It has only great memories. It’s a pure Mercedes engine, it revs high. How do we give it enough energy from the battery side to not lose connection to the real world? Because if we swing to 100% combustion, it might be looking a bit ridiculous in 2031 or 2030.”
