Today the FIA World Motorsport Council met in Samarkand for a regular meeting, where the authors of Formula 1’s new technical regulations will present this document in detail, which should be officially approved at the end of this month.
Before heading to Uzbekistan, the FIA’s director of single-seater racing, Nicholas Tombasis, appeared on the Beyond the Grid podcast to talk about their targets for the 2026 regulations.
Nicholas Tombasis: “The objectives were: We intend to create conditions for closer competition, because it is very important that the racing is spectacular and the cars can chase each other closely on the track, so that the drivers can really fight for positions.
It seems to us that not everything has been going well in this area lately with the current generation of cars. But we also tried to solve other problems: these cars generate too much downforce, so many corners are no longer corners – the drivers go through them at full throttle.
Therefore, we believe that the level of downforce is too high and should be reduced so that there are more areas on the circuits where drivers have to overcome the difficulties associated with a lack of grip.
We also aim to ensure that next-generation cars are seamlessly integrated with new power plants – the engine regulations were published a few years ago. This will also allow us to take the next step forward in raising environmental standards, which is also important.
All these factors together determined our approach in developing the new regulations.”
When Tombasis was asked whether it could happen that in 2026, as has happened many times during reforms, we will again witness the clear dominance of one team, he answered honestly:
“I don’t know. Absolutely, I sincerely hope that the level of competition will be very high straight away. I would like to believe that several teams will fight for victories, although of course, as always when switching to new regulations, someone will make mistakes in its interpretation, and these champion participants will have difficulties at the beginning of the season.
However, it seems to me that we have taken a number of measures so that in the long term the competitive position of the teams as a whole will more or less level out.”
Source: F1 News
I am Christopher Clyde, an experienced journalist and content writer with a passion for sports. I have been writing about Formula 1 news for the past five years and am currently employed as an author at athletistic.com, one of the top sports websites in the US.
