New Formula 1 Engine for 2026-what's your idea?

Ross Brawn discusses 2026 engine "The hope is that a reset with a new power unit specification will encourage other suppliers to start planning to join Ferrari, Mercedes, Renault and Honda in the long term."

So, what would YOU suggest for a new and interesting engine for Formula 1 in 2026? I don't want anybody to trash talk other suggestions, I just want to see what your idea is. 

Here's my suggestion: Build any 4 stroke, internal combustion engine you want but the entire power unit has to fit in a box 24"x24"x24" and you have only 100 kgs of fuel to last a whole race. You get 110 kg of fuel if more than 50% of the engine (by weight) is identical in spec to a production car engine with at least 1000 examples sold for road use. No restriction on fuel flow rate. 

My reasoning is that I would like to see the variety that would show up to the grid. Maybe there would be naturally aspirated v8's competing against turbo 4's or V6's? I dunno but they would all be different. Why would we care what they were if they had the power and fuel economy to win a race? I bet Ferrari would build something with more cylinders than Honda. Maybe Honda would put some awesome 4 cylinder in the next Civic Si so they could use the block in their Formula 1 engine? 

From an investment standpoint, it would have to be a hybrid in one form or another.  Like should have happened with the 2021/22 update, the e-boost/recovery should go.  Nobody is doing that, and I don't really see anyone finding it's a more effective solution than just direct drive of the crankshaft.

I woud keep the fuel flow limit- becuase there's some real incentive to increase a larger range of peak efficiency.  100kg of fuel is average efficiency, fuel flow limit is peak flow efficiency- and both are pretty darned important.

I would take away the very specific design dimesions that are in the rules.  Those were there with the idea to save money, but with budget caps- that's built into the system already.  There are already rules against really exotic materials.  I also agree that the engine layout should be open- an I4 vs. V6 would be interesting- especially with the new ground effects rules makes the layout pretty important.

But to get OEM's, the engine either has to be cheap or relevant.  Better if it's both.

I think they should just go full on EV.  It’s time.  

Five liter pushrod...

Actually, four cylinder hybrid.  Picture a 12,000 rpm Prius.

In reply to alfadriver (Forum Supporter) :

I agree with you. I think that a little more freedom of design would attract manufacturers because they could actually develop ideas that may carry over into production cars or at least allow them to claim some racing dna in their production cars. There would have to be some allowance for a hybrid unit but since batteries or capacitors or whatever are not part of the 24" cube I suggested, the cars could still be hybrids. I still think fuel flow should be open to make strategy interesting. A team could crank up the flow, make big power at the beginning of the race and try to make a gap so they can cruise for the rest of the race while another team could start slow and finish fast. It would all make for interesting racing, just like when refuelling was allowed and we never knew what fuel load teams were running.

A 401 CJ said:

I think they should just go full on EV.  It’s time.  

Ahhh . . . I can her them zoom by now. Oh . . . no . . . . sorry that was a fly.  

Yeah, i'm not sure why racing is so heavily regulated (aside from obvious bits like safety) like that- seems almost counter-intuitive since the physical space constraint coupled with the needs to burn so much fuel to make so much power means everyone will likely gravitate towards the same layouts.

I Like 401 CJ and streetwiseguy's ideas both- one just to cut out the middleman, but the latter having the engine just essentially be a highly efficient generator (though how usable that'll be in anything that isn't endurance based I have no idea).

I like the innovation of F1 - to a point. But it may have gotten to a point where they need to devolve as L Cannon suggests. They seem to be aware of the money spent is beyond crazy but even 135 MILLION is looney. The races also have to be races . . . with competition. 

IMHO the best thing F1 could do with the engine rules is to leave them alone.  Constantly changing the rules benefits the teams with the resources to do a ton of R&D to figure out the best solution within the rules set, whereas rules stability gives the other teams a chance to catch up.

Let's get wild and ban pistons. I want the cars to sound like a million murder hornets as they fly past.

OEMs don't want to spend huge money but want to race with hybrids, so I dunno.

I'd keep the fuel flow limits but bring back refueling to throw in another factor of pit strategy. That should mix it up in Monaco.

Racecar Engineering magazine had a recent article about 2021 aero rules. They're following Indycar with more Coke bottle shaped cars that have simpler wings and more underbody aero.

A 401 CJ said:

I think they should just go full on EV.  It’s time.  

I know Formula E cars now have enough battery life to last a whole race, but the races and tracks are still shorter than a grand prix. A switchable battery that won't be ejected in a crash would be a great development and have road car uses.  I like that the quietness of Formula E allows them to have street circuit races.

Fuel flow restrictions\monitoring will stay. Definitive evidence et al. There needs to be an either or choice to avoid everyone having the same solution.

Something like Turbo or Hybrid in a well defined cube. Maybe use a stock block and use both systems or narrow angle v6 (60 degrees or less) plus Hybrid vs a flat 6 and a Turbo. Or The Hybrid system is a part of each front wheel and a Turbo engine behind the driver .

The fuel capacity could be increased for fitting your power plant in a smaller cube (v4, v6) but that favors bigger budgets. So you'll likely end up with a very similar power plant to the current spec. But if you increased fuel capacity based on additional cylinders (keeping all other resrictions). They would be more interesting at least.

Does a VR6 fit in a 24" cube anyway?

From a completely selfish standpoint, and thinking entirely in hypothetical, unrealistic terms: 500 cubic inch big block V8s. 

Something about super heavy engines with tons of torque in the back of an open-wheel car seems like a hilariously fun idea to me. Of course I recognize the dozens of reasons why this will never happen.

Why does every car have to have the same engine configuration? Give the teams a displacement limit and a forced induction limit but let them pick.

buzzboy said:

Why does every car have to have the same engine configuration? Give the teams a displacement limit and a forced induction limit but let them pick.

That don't need to, but it ends up that one works best.  Back in the na 3.0 times, Ferrari fought their way to the back of the pack with a V12, and finally joined everyone else with a V10.

The glorious noises suffered for it.

buzzboy said:

Why does every car have to have the same engine configuration? Give the teams a displacement limit and a forced induction limit but let them pick.

Cost limiting.  Will a 90 degree, 80 degree, or 110 degree bank angle make more power and be packagable more effectively?  (Wider bank angles allow shorter deck heights but limit you for intake design)  Will more cylinders make more or less power?

Better make one of each, design a car for each, and do testing.

This is 100% why they originally said enough, you will make a V10, with this bank angle.

I recall an article in Racecar Engineering in the early days of the current rules and the engine designers at both Mercedes and Renault opined that if left to their own devices they would have been running 4 cylinder engines (layout not specified) with horrendous amounts of boost and revving to somewhere around 5 to 6,000 rpm.

The problem with the current formula is that with everything so tightly constrained the only avenue for horsepower increases is BMEP and any engine builder will tell you that they are the most expensive hp to buy.

thatsnowinnebago (Forum Supporter) said:

Let's get wild and ban pistons. I want the cars to sound like a million murder hornets as they fly past.

Turbo-shaft engines with hydrostatic drivetrains.

Or go the complete opposite direction, use a cheapo spec sealed create engine.

In reply to RichardNZ :

With the new spending limits, manufacturers are going to have to weigh their engine options and not just thorw money at the situation

I like the cube idea + a restrictor plate or fuel flow restriction (I didn't know this was a thing... it does apprx. the same thing as a restrictor plate, no?)

Easy to limit power, with no need to tear anything apart to police it.

I do agree as mentioned earlier though that constantly changing the rules does favor the teams with gigantic R&D budgets over other teams.

RichardNZ said:

The problem with the current formula is that with everything so tightly constrained the only avenue for horsepower increases is BMEP and any engine builder will tell you that they are the most expensive hp to buy.

But at the same time, if "racing improves the breed", then finding ways to gain BMEP/fuel makes production cars better.

I still vividly remember a quote from one of the guys at Childress, where he pointed out that they were dumping 2500 horsepower worth of fuel and air to make 900 horsepower at the crank, so their engine program was focused on putting as much of the missing 1600hp as possible to the crank instead of out the exhaust pipes or through the radiator and oil cooler.

What about going at it a different way.  Straight limit HP.  Require the teams use a common clutch center design that they buy from F1 that has a torque sensor in it.  Tell the teams that all torque electric or otherwise has to go through that device (measured electronically not some kind of torque limiter).  Allow them to have X peak torque, Y peak RPM, and then allow for some amount of area under the curve.  Basically the engines can be as exotic as the manufacturer wants for packaging or other competitive reasons but the targets should be selected such that some reasonable $$ could achieve the goals.  Ideally some kind of commoness with other racing series should be considered.  I know these guys (F1, Indy, LMP, etc) compete with each other but the number of companies that want to play with cars at all is lower now it seems then ever.  Asking manufactures to develop 14 different specs of engines is probably what is prohibiting expansion.  I'd bet if Porsche could of plugged the V4 from the 919 into a F1 chassis they would of considered it.   

Obviously it's a bit complicated to track the data all the time, and they probably would need to have fuel capacity or flow limits to promote hybridization.   But pure limitation on power is my idea.  

nocones said:

Obviously it's a bit complicated to track the data all the time, and they probably would need to have fuel capacity or flow limits to promote hybridization.   But pure limitation on power is my idea.  

I like your idea. I was going to suggest something similar to what was allowed in LMP1 around 2016, but what you are proposing is better for competition.

loosecannon said:

In reply to RichardNZ :

With the new spending limits, manufacturers are going to have to weigh their engine options and not just thorw money at the situation

Engines aren't included in the salary cap rules, unless I've read something outdated or incorrect. I want V10s, because they sound amazing.

But the current rules are in place BECAUSE of the manufacturers. 20k rpm V8s aren't really applicable to road cars.

So remove the fuel flow limits, allow refueling, let them turn up the boost and see what happens. 

Sorry, I just find the idea of "fuel efficient" F1 cars a little ridiculous. How many orders of magnitude more fuel is used flying these cars, tools, tires, staff, etc, all around the world?

In reply to z31maniac :

It's not about saving a few liters of race fuel, it's about the limitation that has to be engineered past.  That's where you get things like Hondas running preheated fuel and well lean of stoich at full power.  This sort of thing does translate to road cars, where fuel economy is one of the main priorities.

LeMans has had a fuel limit for a long time, too.