Red Bull boss Christian Horner says the FIA and F1 have heeded his warnings about potential threats from the planned new technical rules.
A major technical revolution awaits F1 in 2026, when there will be fundamental changes to the rules, both in the area of power units (PJ) and the chassis itself.
Major challenges will be faced especially by PJ manufacturers, who are already developing engines whose performance will come half from the “electrical component”.
Concerns in this regard were expressed some time ago by the head of Red Bull, Christian Horner, who warned of the risk that if the new rules are not set correctly, the single-seaters of the upcoming generation could resemble Frankenstein cars.
Now, approximately two months before the finalization of the form of the planned rules for the area of single-seaters, Horner has been heard to acknowledge that the FIA and F1 have responded to his concerns.
“It’s clear that we’re in for a huge change in 2026, which will be somewhat unprecedented because both cars and engines will be changing at the same time. There are a lot of unknown factors, but the FIA has done a lot of work and worked with the teams. When I was quite vocal about some potential issues some time ago, it was heard and taken note of. I would say that there has been solid progress,” said Horner, quoted by Autosport.
“It will be fascinating to see how the engineers interpret the regulations. The year 2026 could (compared to the present, editor’s note) look completely different,” the head of Red Bull added on this topic.
The fact that the FIA takes into account the opinions of the teams when preparing the new rules is appreciated by McLaren team boss Andrea Stella in addition to Horner.
“We are happy that the cooperation between the teams and the FIA is so intense,” said the Italian.
“As we have already said, it is important that the new rules are set in such a way as to avoid the unintended consequences that we have seen to some extent with the current generation of cars,” said Stella, who cited the so-called as an example. porpoising, i.e. the jumping of single-seaters at high speeds, which troubled many F1 teams after the introduction of the current regulations.
