RacingMercedes and Red Bull Ford have helped force early changes to Formula 1’s 2026 power-unit rules, with the FIA moving after just three races to tighten policing of a qualifying MGU-K tactic and continue closing off a separate compression-ratio gray area.
Senior technical figures have already started discussing revisions to parts of the 2026 package, according to The Race, after a first meeting last Thursday and more talks planned through the rest of the month. By the time the season reaches Miami, qualifying is likely to be covered by different wording in at least one competitive area.
The immediate issue sits in the electrical side of the hybrid system. As Jon Noble reported for The Race, the rules say electrical power must taper away at 50kW per second when battery energy runs out. But teams found another route. If the MGU-K is disconnected for what the rules call “technical reasons,” it is blocked for 60 seconds instead of going through that gradual reduction.
Mercedes and Red Bull Ford are reported by The Race to have used that mechanism just after crossing the line at the end of a qualifying lap. That timing matters. The 60-second lockout then falls on the cooldown lap or the trip back to the pits, so the competitive hit is limited, while the car avoids the normal power drop right at the end of the flying lap. Estimates in the same report put the gain at 50-100kW, or roughly 68-136CV, for a few seconds.
Rival manufacturers had already spotted the pattern in Australia, according to The Race, and evidence from Japan strengthened those suspicions. Ferrari then asked the FIA if it could do the same. The FIA’s response, as reported by The Race, was that the tactic is legal under the current wording, but it also sees a safety problem in using an emergency-style disconnection as a performance tool. From the Miami Grand Prix onward, the FIA will analyse all qualifying-lap data to judge whether any MGU-K disconnection came from a real issue or was used to gain performance.
That loophole has exposed a bigger problem in the 2026 concept. The engine rules were built around a near 50/50 split between combustion and electric power after the MGU-H was removed. Back in 2020, FIA technical director Gilles Simon explained the thinking to The Race. “Working on the electric part will be an important aspect of the 2026 powertrain,” Simon, FIA technical director, said to The Race in 2020. “Today, it’s a very important topic everywhere. Everybody is speaking about electrification.”
On track, though, that balance is being blamed for battery depletion, lift-and-coast, super clipping and odd straight-line speed traces. The Race reported that Audi had pushed hard for the MGU-H to go when the rules were being shaped. “Now is the right time for us to get involved,” Markus Duesmann, then Audi chairman, said in Audi communications about the company’s F1 entry. “After all, Formula 1 and Audi both pursue clear sustainability goals.”
Audi now rejects the idea that it drove the exact 50/50 split. “Audi has not been part of the 50/50 decision,” Mattia Binotto, head of the Audi F1 project, told The Race. He added that Audi wanted “high efficiency engines, sustainable fuel, a significant part of electrification and then the removal of the MGU-H.”
The other live dispute is the compression-ratio question around Mercedes. The FIA is introducing a new hot test from June 1 at 130C, but Bernie Collins does not think that ends the argument. “They are introducing a test to measure compression ratio at 150°C, but they estimate the actual engine is 350-400 degrees. So there is a big difference,” Collins, former McLaren performance engineer and Sky Sports F1 analyst, said on Sky’s podcast. Collins also said teams have always looked at “what is written” in the rules and “what is not written.”
A separate analysis argues the FIA may have left room for interpretation itself, because compression-ratio verification appears to have been tied to cold conditions before clarifications were issued in October and December. So before Miami has even arrived, a rules set developed over nearly six years is already being rewritten and more tightly watched.