The International Automobile Federation (FIA) has banned the development of new power units (PUs) for 2026 through tests conducted by fuel suppliers, avoiding cost constraints and multiplying research opportunities. E-fuel must now be studied using only single-cylinder engines, and fuel supplier personnel cannot transfer any intellectual property of the PU even when changing brands. This is a crackdown on a practice that was unregulated and was causing numerous anomalies.
Reading the FIA statement might suggest that the decisions of the World Council regarding the 2026 power units only concerned minor details (as they were defined). However, the measures taken are an attempt to curb research that, in the partnership between engine manufacturers and fuel suppliers, could lead to overemphasis that the FIA intends to eliminate.
Engine manufacturers must adhere to a specific budget cap that sets the maximum costs and limits research. Some may have thought it was possible to leverage the significant research work initiated by those developing e-fuel to accelerate the growth of their own 6-cylinder engines for the 2026 F1.
As this is not an area of research regulated by the rules, strange “collaborations” between manufacturers involved in the Formula 1 championship and fuel suppliers had been noticed. The FIA did not make any mention of who entrusted their endothermic engine to a “gas station,” but several F1 participants have access to test benches capable of handling the power of a 6-cylinder engine for the top motorsport category.
Mutual cooperation obviously allows the engine manufacturer to develop their unit, even outside their premises, while the fuel supplier can develop e-fuel for use in the 2026 GPs. The FIA has rightfully decided to close these practices with a measure that cuts the head off the bull: fuel suppliers cannot conduct bench tests on their fuels with a complete V6 engine. There has been an addition to Article 2.8 of the Sporting Regulations on the 2026 power units, which reads: “An existing or potential fuel/oil supplier for an engine manufacturer is not authorized to use a test bench for the development of a 2026 PU unless it is solely for the use of a single-cylinder engine, and subject to said facility being declared to the FIA by the engine manufacturer.”
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The regulations now define a much clearer and stricter framework to avoid excesses that have occurred up to now. The FIA has also introduced additional limits regarding the intellectual property of the engines: there can be no osmosis between the fuel supplier’s personnel dedicated to F1 and the manufacturer.
In an appendix to the 2026 Technical Regulations, the FIA sets out the elements of engine intellectual property that cannot be shared with fuel suppliers.
This includes:
1) Any design and/or CAD and/or any physical part of the combustion chamber.
2) Any information regarding gas exchange inside the combustion chamber, as well as cylinder pressure data, simulation, and test results.
Not only that, but fuel supplier personnel cannot carry intellectual property with them when changing positions.
The new rules establish that: “… no PU manufacturer can use the transfer of personnel (be it an employee, consultant, contractor, detached or any other type of permanent or temporary entity) from an existing or potential fuel/oil supplier or another PU manufacturer, directly or through a third party, for the purpose of obtaining a transfer of Intellectual Property and/or evading the requirements of this Article.”
“Each engine manufacturer must inform the FIA of all relevant personnel movements at the end of each calendar quarter.”
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