0
Gary Anderson has spent his career designing Formula 1 cars and he understands power unit regulations in technical terms that most people in the sport do not. His assessment of the 2026 engine rules is scathing, precise, and backed by numbers that make the FIA's position look very difficult to defend.
The Core Problem With the 50/50 Split
Anderson's central argument, made to The Race, is that the fundamental premise of the 2026 power unit regulations was mathematically unworkable from the start. "How could anyone think you would get anywhere near a 50/50 split of hybrid power over a lap when you were using the same motor, the 350 kW MGU-K, for both tasks? We know that 50/50 was never really the case. It was probably more like 370 kW from the combustion engine and initially 350 kW from the MGU-K."
FIA Considering Significant Downforce Cuts for 2027
Formula 1 Announces Immediate Rule Changes to Tackle Safety and Energy Management
The physics of a 4 megajoule battery pack simply cannot sustain 350 kilowatts of deployment across anything close to a full race lap. Anderson calculated that at that power level, the battery could only deliver for approximately 11.5 seconds before being exhausted. Given that a driver wants full power for roughly 60 percent of a lap, the MGU-K would need to be recharged more than five times per lap to deliver what the rules implied it should.
What the Numbers Actually Show
He put the calculation plainly. "If we look at those percentages and assume a lap of 100 seconds, we get 60 seconds of potential full power on demand from the driver. To achieve that with the 4 MJ battery pack you need to charge it 5.2 times per lap and to do that you have only 20 seconds to use that same MGU-K at its maximum regeneration power."
The consequence is that the effective power output of the system is nothing like the 700 kilowatts that the regulations were supposed to produce. "In effect you are using 22 of the millions-of-dollars powertrain packages as a generator. If you look only at the basic numbers, that theoretical 350 kW needs to be divided by the 5.2 I calculated above, which amounts to approximately 70 kW. Add that to the 370 kW from the combustion engine and you arrive at a total power output of 440 kW, as opposed to the original specification of 700 kW. That is 590 horsepower instead of 940 horsepower."
The Same Mistake Made Twice
Anderson did not hide his frustration at what he sees as an avoidable failure of due diligence. "I have made many mistakes in my life, but the one thing I have tried to avoid is making the same mistake twice. What I take from the above is that those in power do not seem to realise how serious the problem is that they have worked themselves into." His use of the phrase twice is a reference to earlier hybrid regulations that produced similar difficulties, and the suggestion that the FIA failed to learn from that experience before writing the 2026 rules.
Azerbaijan Grand Prix
I. Hadjar
A. Antonelli
C. Leclerc
Replies (0)
Login to reply