There has been a lot of speculation regarding Ferrari’s failure to sign the new power unit regulations that be introduced in starting with the 2026 season. There were in fact deadlines decided internally by the FIA, first on October 15th and then on November 15th, to preliminarily confirm its presence in what will become to all intents and purposes a new era of the top motorsport series. However, deadlines that concerned only the new power unit manufacturers makers and it is no coincidence that the first two signatures came from Audi and Red Bull Powertrain.
All this also forced the preliminary registration of Honda which, however, immediately clarified that this choice does not necessarily mean its presence in the 2026 Formula 1 world championship. “We signed up with HRC as producers of power units for 2026”, said Watanabe, President of Honda Racing, during Honda’s presentation of the 2023 Honda Motor Sports Activity Plan. “The Formula 1 regulations are moving in the direction that Honda is taking. The goals are the same as electrification and carbon neutrality will be promoted.” then stated the boss of the Japanese company’s Racing section. Honda’s decision to register means the company now has the opportunity to decide whether or not it aims for a formal comeback in 2026, either on its own (by buying Alpha Tauri), or in partnership with Red Bull.
The engine manufacturers already present in Formula 1 therefore did not have any formal deadline set by the Federation, even if it was clear that they too, namely Mercedes, Renault and Ferrari, would have had to sign in the short term to confirm their interest to the Federation. Mercedes and Renault have done it, Ferrari is stalling because it is still discussing points, both sporting (mainly the role of Red Bull Powertrains) and technical, which have not yet convinced the management from Maranello, primarily the now ex Team Principal, Mattia Binotto. However, there is no doubt about the presence of the Italian brand in F1 in 2026, nor about using the veto, a tool much mentioned but with more historical value than anything else, according to a recent report from Giuliano Duchessa and Piergiuseppe Donadoni for formu1a.uno.
Ferrari: limiting the engine also affected the poor second part of the 2022 F1 season
Mercedes and Red Bull (Powertrains) have leaked that they have started studying the concept of their new 2026 power units. Both in fact fired up the first engine (single-cylinder) last summer. In Maranello, none of this has yet been done as the main focus was on definitively solving the reliability problems that affected the 2022 power unit mounted on the F1-75.
In fact, last season Ferrari was forced to use as many as six internal combustion engines, as well as other surplus elements, such as the turbo, with a schedule at the beginning of the year which instead foresaw just 4 units. Clearly the failures surprised the technicians, especially as they occurred unexpectedly on Power Unit number 2, the one reinforced and therefore with updated specifications. In the second part of last season it was not smart to approve a further specification, without the certainty of being able to solve the problems 100% and with the limitations imposed by the Federation in terms of updating the units frozen at the beginning of 2022. In that context it was not possible to go forward or backward, which is why Ferrari has focused on using the 2022 software tokens to limit the unexpected and improve performance as much as possible. All this, coupled with a weakening of the engine by many horsepower, has often forced the team to use configurations that were not entirely optimal in order not to lose even more to the speed on the straight line of the Red Bull. Obviously nothing to do with what was brutally seen in 2020 or partially in 2021. However, it is obvious that even the F1-75 could have shown much more in the second part of the season, Power Unit and DT39 permitting, as pointed out by formu1a.uno.
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In fact, if there was one thing that worked well on the F1-75 it was the use of many wing degrees. It is no coincidence that Ferrari is the only one to have favored high efficiency in the upper part of the car. A choice that clearly could not have been made on the run, but rather a precise design programming, then relying on the stability of the basic project and the good potential of the power unit. Something that not all the teams have chosen or been able to do a priori, also considering how much the engine then affects the choices of the customer teams.
In Maranello, no intense changes to the floor were foreseen – except to manage the bouncing – if everything worked as expected from the simulations. This is exactly what happened earlier this year. This indirectly explains why the technicians had many problems in maintaining a very high performance after having had to change the floor and lift the car with the introduction of the Technical Directive 39 at Spa. Certainly such a significant loss of performance was not estimated, however the data showed an suddenly very short and unstable operating window. What had distinguished Ferrari from Mercedes for most of the 2022 Formula One season up to that point.
Ferrari: work on the 2026 power unit will start next spring
In the summer FIA, Formula 1 and power unit manufacturers have defined quite clearly the regulation of the power units that will come into force in 2026, that is when the freezing of the current units will end. As mentioned, Maranello is heavily involved in delivering a much more powerful 2023 engine than the one seen last season, while simultaneously raising the level of reliability. The forced departure of Mattia Binotto in this sense has done nothing but increase the pressure on that macro part of the team, clearly very well cared for by the former team principal.
In terms of technical programming, 2026 is approaching but for the moment all the engineers are committed to improving the current units so as not to leave untapped potential. This is undoubtedly the priority, as there are three more full seasons to face. The ideas for the next generation of engines are on the table of the Ferrari technicians, however, the first real phase of development will kick off around next spring, i.e. once the 2023 unit has been tested on the track. “Obviously the concept of the new power unit it is still in an embryonic stage. I doubt other engine manufacturers will start going into detail on a design before they’ve optimized the current units. Increasing performance is not just Ferrari’s problem, rather it seems that Maranello has more room to do it. But that’s a different story…” said a Ferrari-powered team.
Therefore, the words of Gunther Steiner should not come as a surprise: after a conversation with Mattia Binotto, he spoke of an Italian PU 2023 that will be “a bomb”. In Maranello they know that, to fight against the aerodynamicists and chassis performance of Mercedes and above all Red Bull, it will be necessary to have a high-performance power unit, even better if with an advantage of a few HP.
The new rules have facilitated the entry of new manufacturers such as Audi, however – according to engineers from Ferrari and Mercedes – they have also partially impoverished the technical level. In fact, it is not enough that the new units will be almost 50% powered by electricity, one of the factors that convinced Honda to show interest in F1 again. “It seems like a step backwards, at least on a purely technological front, because the MGU-H is the most fascinating component of these engines, and at the same time the most delicate and expensive in which investments have been made in these 10 years. On the other hand, it was understandable that he was sacrificed, because it could not find outlets in the production of road cars.” a top-level engineer confided to formu1a.uno, who then wanted to reveal some interesting information about the next units:
“We will all focus on the capacity and combustion efficiency (combustion coefficient) of the new fuels (100% sustainable), since the next internal combustion engines will burn 30 kg less fuel and the main algorithm will be substantially different, i.e. we will switch from the fuel flow/hour ratio to the energy/hour ratio“. The new 350 kW KERS, almost 480 HP, will become of equal importance to the internal combustion part. “We will have to invest heavily in the new KERS since it will have to be very efficient, as well as in the weight of the new batteries to contain the masses.” – also considering that the new generation of cars should weigh less than the current one.
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