A report emanating out of Germany claims moves are afoot to make a radical departure from hybrid power units and return to high-revving V10s.
F1 is poised to introduce sweeping new rules next season with changes to both the chassis and power units.
Within that, F1 will switch to sustainable fuels, a point that led to suggestions from FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem that the sport could return to larger capacity, normally aspirated engines.
The next generation of power unit regulations is meant to run until 2031, beyond which no decision has been made on its direction.
However, a report in Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport suggests the sport is looking for a more radical solution.
It claims the planned power unit regulation change for 2026 could be scrapped with teams instead retaining the current hybrid units for another two years.
F1 would then switch to normally aspirated engines using fully sustainable fuel as early as 2028.
The upshot of that move would mean smaller, lighter cars as teams could do away with hybrid systems, which have done much to increase both size and weight in recent years.
It’s also billed as something of an insurance policy against the whims of the auto industry.
The current and future hybrid units are expensive and complicated, meaning only an OEM is really capable of manufacturing one.
What happens if, like in 2009, there is a mass manufacturer exodus from F1? Where do teams get power units from?
By comparison, a V10 engine is comparatively straightforward to develop and could be done by third parties.
However, multiple sources have told Speedcafe that such a move is all but impossible, for a multitude of reasons.
The first and simplest is that the manufacturers involved have invested millions of dollars into their current programs and are not of a mind to simply throw that away.
Red Bull has set up its own engine program, Red Bull Powertrains, while Audi’s entry into F1 is directly related to the power unit regulations having relevance for its road car plans.
Even Honda was set to depart F1 before the 2026 regulations tempted it into remaining.
The Japanese auto giant will switch from Red Bull to Aston Martin for next year, which in itself poses another problem.
Aston Martin and Alpine are both set to swap manufacturers, while Red Bull will supply itself and Racing Bulls.
If the current regulations were extended, both teams would likely have to rely on an obligation to supply regulations – a point Formula 1 Management made very clear it felt was embarrassing when it rejected Andretti’s entry this time last year.
There’s more, too.
Continuing with the current power units into 2026 would significantly impact the design of next year’s car.
Moveable aerodynamics are set to be introduced, a decision made as a result of the increased hybridisation of the power unit.
Retaining the current solution would change those calculations and likely require a complete rewrite of the aerodynamic rules.
That would render much of the work teams have carried out to date useless and send them back to the drawing board little more than nine months away from the new season.
It’s an incredibly short timeframe, especially when one also considers things like weight distribution, suspension, tyres, and other fundamentals of an F1 car.
“It’s pretty much logistically impossible,” one senior figure within the F1 paddock told Speedcafe.
A solution could be to extend the current chassis regulations too, something that was done when the world was in the grips of the pandemic in 2021.
Regulation changes then were pushed back a year, more for financial reasons than anything else.
In this instance, the motivation is born more out of a sense of romanticism than technical or financial necessity.
There is a chance F1 could revert to normally aspirated, high-revving engines in future, and there is certainly paddock support for the notion.
But for now, accelerating that to 2028 and retaining the current engines in the interim seems unlikely given the sheer volume of logistical, commercial, and technical hurdles standing in the way.
