FIA chief confirms F1 team has discovered major 2026 ‘advantage’ as promise made to rivals | F1 | Sport
Nikolas Tombazis, the FIA’s single-seater director, has confirmed that a team has locked in an advantage in the new power unit regulations with a clever trick relating to the compression ratio of the internal combustion engine pistons.
This team, reported to be Mercedes, have been at the centre of an off-track whirlwind this off-season with rivals seeking clarification and action from the FIA before the first race of the new season in Melbourne next month.
“Of course, as these engineers are very clever and always pushing for an advantage, some have found ways to potentially increase it when the engine is running hot, and that is the discussion we’re having now,” said Tombazis in an FIA-published video.
“We’ve spent a lot of time with Jan [Monchaux, single-seater technical director] discussing how we solve those issues, and our intention is, of course, to solve them for the start of the season. We don’t want to have controversies, we want people to be competing on the track, not in the courtroom or in the stewards’ room, and that’s what we’re trying to do.”
However, Tombazis believes that controversy on some level was nigh-on impossible to avoid. “It’s a numbers game and a statistics game, and it’s impossible when we have new rules not to have such areas of discussion,” he added. “That’s always been the case.
“I think what has changed is that we are determined to make this a championship of competition between the best drivers, the best engineers, the teams, but not a championship of rule interpretation. We want it to be a championship of engineering prowess as well as driving prowess but not of just who is a smarter rule interpreter.”
With teams fearing the new Mercedes power unit, the Silver Arrows are being widely considered the pre-season favourites for both World Championships. This means that five-time Grand Prix winner George Russell is poised to contest for his first crown.
According to his boss at Mercedes, Toto Wolff, Russell deserves his billing as title favourite. “It’s always nice if your driver is the favourite and for the bookmakers, and I think he deserves it, because he’s one of the best,” the Austrian explained. “He’s shown us where the performance of the car is, and been overall, more than great to us.
“But also there, it is always best driver and best car wins, and we haven’t yet proven that we have a package that is good enough. We haven’t been in the hot in Bahrain, with the abrasive tarmac which was always tricky for us. So, I’d hope the bookmakers are right, but I’ll believe it when we have seen performances that would confirm that.”
