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Formula 1 has barely made it halfway through its first season under the 2026 regulations and it’s already making changes to the rulebook for next year. The FIA’s World Motor Sport Council has formally approved a two-stage overhaul spanning 2027 and 2028, targeting the thing that has made this season painful to watch: cars running out of electrical energy mid-straight and visibly slowing down while still at full throttle.
Super clipping occurs when the MGU-K runs out of stored energy partway along an extended straight, forcing the car to rely solely on its internal combustion engine for the remainder of that stretch. Data collected at the Australian GP revealed Antonelli’s car decelerating from 325 km/h to 270 km/h – a 55 km/h reduction – while the throttle remained fully open and no brakes were applied. It looks broken because, in a sense, it is.
At the heart of the problem lies the roughly equal division of power between the turbocharged V6 combustion engine and the electrical systems, a requirement baked into the 2026 regulations. This marks a significant departure from the prior generation of power units, in which the internal combustion engine alone accounted for over 80% of total power output. Removing the MGU-H in 2026 also meant teams lost a key avenue for harvesting exhaust energy, leaving the MGU-K as the sole recovery mechanism, charged only under braking.
The adjustment is being phased in gradually: the combustion-to-electrical power ratio will move from approximately 53/47 to 58/42 in 2027, with 60/40 set as the goal for 2028. The internal combustion engine’s power ceiling climbs from 400kW to roughly 420kW in 2027 thanks to a 5% increase in fuel flow, whereas the cap on electrical power deployment is being reduced from 350kW to 300kW. Boost pressure from the turbocharger is set to increase in stages, rising to 5.0 bar in 2027 before climbing further to 5.5 bar in 2028 – a level comparable to what was used during the prior hybrid era, up from the 4.8 bar figure established for 2026.
The battery will store more energy in stages, rising from 4MJ to 4.5MJ in 2027 before reaching 5MJ in 2028, while the cap on regenerative braking power climbs from 350kW to 375kW and then 400kW across those same two years. On paper, that combination should let cars bank more energy through braking zones and spend less of it maintaining speed on straights.
Simulation data, per reports from Autosport, suggests the combined effect of the power unit and aerodynamic changes could produce lap times up to four seconds quicker than the current cars. If accurate, that would eclipse existing circuit records at venues like Shanghai.
The aero side is getting attention too. The front floor plank shrinks from 900mm to 600mm, which lets teams drop ride height and recover aerodynamic grip that was sacrificed when the 2026 cars raised their floors to avoid a repeat of the 2023 US Grand Prix skid block controversy. Rear wings are being trimmed by 20mm to cut drag, and Ferrari‘s exhaust-blown wing concept – a feature that attracted attention throughout 2026 – will be outlawed. In its place, a small pylon brace connecting the rear wing elements will be permitted, functionally similar to what the sport last used in the 2017-era turbo hybrid cars.
There’s a catch embedded in all of this. Raising the fuel flow limit means cars need more fuel to complete a full race distance. The 2026 chassis were engineered to package as tightly as possible around a 70kg fuel cell – down from 100kg in 2025 – and you cannot simply drop a larger tank into an existing carbon fiber tub without building a new one. That would ordinarily trigger a full chassis development cycle, blowing straight through the cost cap.
The FIA’s solution is to trim race distances by one or two laps at select circuits and reduce reconnaissance laps at fuel-heavy tracks like Monza. So the fix for the engine creates a fuel problem, which gets fixed by making the races shorter. It’s a chain of compromises held together with cable ties.
The FIA has extended pre-season testing by one day ahead of 2027, bringing it from three days to four, a change the governing body linked to the increased technical complexity of the current car generation. Williams boss James Vowles flagged the aero changes at the Belgian GP as more significant than teams initially anticipated, admitting to Sky Sports that the 2027 car would require meaningful new development rather than a straightforward carryover. The Race had previously reported that as many as half the grid was considering rolling their 2026 chassis into next year to manage cost cap pressure – a plan that the fuel tank incompatibility has now complicated considerably.
The uncomfortable reality underneath all of this is that the 2026 regulations were the most technically ambitious power unit rules the sport had ever mandated, and they didn’t work as intended in their first season. The 2027 and 2028 changes are not a revolution – they’re a managed retreat toward something closer to what the sport had before. Whether faster lap times and less energy starvation will be enough to paper over the structural awkwardness of that retreat is a question the FIA would probably rather not answer directly.
Continue reading...
Super clipping occurs when the MGU-K runs out of stored energy partway along an extended straight, forcing the car to rely solely on its internal combustion engine for the remainder of that stretch. Data collected at the Australian GP revealed Antonelli’s car decelerating from 325 km/h to 270 km/h – a 55 km/h reduction – while the throttle remained fully open and no brakes were applied. It looks broken because, in a sense, it is.
At the heart of the problem lies the roughly equal division of power between the turbocharged V6 combustion engine and the electrical systems, a requirement baked into the 2026 regulations. This marks a significant departure from the prior generation of power units, in which the internal combustion engine alone accounted for over 80% of total power output. Removing the MGU-H in 2026 also meant teams lost a key avenue for harvesting exhaust energy, leaving the MGU-K as the sole recovery mechanism, charged only under braking.
What the FIA Is Actually Changing
The adjustment is being phased in gradually: the combustion-to-electrical power ratio will move from approximately 53/47 to 58/42 in 2027, with 60/40 set as the goal for 2028. The internal combustion engine’s power ceiling climbs from 400kW to roughly 420kW in 2027 thanks to a 5% increase in fuel flow, whereas the cap on electrical power deployment is being reduced from 350kW to 300kW. Boost pressure from the turbocharger is set to increase in stages, rising to 5.0 bar in 2027 before climbing further to 5.5 bar in 2028 – a level comparable to what was used during the prior hybrid era, up from the 4.8 bar figure established for 2026.
The battery will store more energy in stages, rising from 4MJ to 4.5MJ in 2027 before reaching 5MJ in 2028, while the cap on regenerative braking power climbs from 350kW to 375kW and then 400kW across those same two years. On paper, that combination should let cars bank more energy through braking zones and spend less of it maintaining speed on straights.
Simulation data, per reports from Autosport, suggests the combined effect of the power unit and aerodynamic changes could produce lap times up to four seconds quicker than the current cars. If accurate, that would eclipse existing circuit records at venues like Shanghai.
The aero side is getting attention too. The front floor plank shrinks from 900mm to 600mm, which lets teams drop ride height and recover aerodynamic grip that was sacrificed when the 2026 cars raised their floors to avoid a repeat of the 2023 US Grand Prix skid block controversy. Rear wings are being trimmed by 20mm to cut drag, and Ferrari‘s exhaust-blown wing concept – a feature that attracted attention throughout 2026 – will be outlawed. In its place, a small pylon brace connecting the rear wing elements will be permitted, functionally similar to what the sport last used in the 2017-era turbo hybrid cars.
There’s a catch embedded in all of this. Raising the fuel flow limit means cars need more fuel to complete a full race distance. The 2026 chassis were engineered to package as tightly as possible around a 70kg fuel cell – down from 100kg in 2025 – and you cannot simply drop a larger tank into an existing carbon fiber tub without building a new one. That would ordinarily trigger a full chassis development cycle, blowing straight through the cost cap.
The FIA’s solution is to trim race distances by one or two laps at select circuits and reduce reconnaissance laps at fuel-heavy tracks like Monza. So the fix for the engine creates a fuel problem, which gets fixed by making the races shorter. It’s a chain of compromises held together with cable ties.
The FIA has extended pre-season testing by one day ahead of 2027, bringing it from three days to four, a change the governing body linked to the increased technical complexity of the current car generation. Williams boss James Vowles flagged the aero changes at the Belgian GP as more significant than teams initially anticipated, admitting to Sky Sports that the 2027 car would require meaningful new development rather than a straightforward carryover. The Race had previously reported that as many as half the grid was considering rolling their 2026 chassis into next year to manage cost cap pressure – a plan that the fuel tank incompatibility has now complicated considerably.
The uncomfortable reality underneath all of this is that the 2026 regulations were the most technically ambitious power unit rules the sport had ever mandated, and they didn’t work as intended in their first season. The 2027 and 2028 changes are not a revolution – they’re a managed retreat toward something closer to what the sport had before. Whether faster lap times and less energy starvation will be enough to paper over the structural awkwardness of that retreat is a question the FIA would probably rather not answer directly.
Continue reading...
