Formula 1 is unlikely to significantly reduce car sizes in the new technical regulations it will introduce in 2026, according to Red Bull team principal Christian Horner.
Drivers have blamed the growing dimensions of their cars in recent years for the difficulty of racing closely and overtaking. Larger wings and floors have improved aerodynamic performance but this has also increased the negative effect of ‘dirty air’.Tyres must now cope with higher cornering speeds and car weights, as the minimum mass limit has risen to 798 kilograms. This makes the rubber prone to overheating, especially when one car follows closely behind another.
The current cars are also over 11% wider than they were eight years ago. That has made overtaking more difficult at some circuits, a problem which is most acute in Monaco where last weekend’s round took place.
But Horner says the new regulations for 2026 won’t significantly change that. “With the size of these cars and the weight of these cars, they’re so big now, arguably they’re too big to be racing around these streets because you can barely get two side-by-side,” he said in Monaco. “So that inevitably is going to cause issues.”
Horner believes street tracks like Monaco, built within the constraints of local road sizes, must to change to accommodate F1, rather than the other way around.
“We either need to make the cars considerably smaller going forward for ‘26, which isn’t really on the cards, or [in order] to have a really entertaining in a race here then we ought to look at least the possibility of could we open up some areas that could potentially create at least an overtaking opportunity and what would it what would it envelop to achieve that?
“I think that’s something that Formula 1, I know, is acutely aware of, and I’m sure Monaco as well. But to protect the next 70 years here, I think that there needs to obviously be some evolution.”
F1 has already indicated it intends to retain the same tyre specifications in 2026, making it unlikely car sizes will substantially change.
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Red Andy (@red-andy)
31st May 2024, 7:46
This argument might make sense if Monaco was the only place where this was a problem. But modern F1 cars struggle to race basically anywhere. The only way you can guarantee overtaking these days is with an ultra-long, ultra-wide straight and a generous DRS zone.
It’s unlikely that there will ever be a generation of F1 cars that can provide a guaranteed action-packed race around Monaco. But they should be able to manage it at Suzuka or Spa, for goodness’ sake.
MacLeod (@macleod)
31st May 2024, 7:54
There are more too long then too wide, but they could reduce weight by changing the halo, max. wide, max. length and reduce wheelbase.
Jere (@jerejj)
31st May 2024, 8:07
@macleod Those aspects will indeed bring down the overall weight in 2026, albeit Halo only by a kg alone, as well as the MGU-H removal & gearbox marginally, fuel tank size, tyre width, & lower overall downforce, which allows for lighter components thanks to lower stress on them.
Olivier
31st May 2024, 9:36
Yes. Zandvoort springs to mind as well. And more recently, Imola. Basically all classic circuits and street circuits are unsuited to the mega-sized F1 cars.
MacLeod (@macleod)
31st May 2024, 13:33
But you can overtake at Zandvoort even with these cars.
Dex
31st May 2024, 10:28
This argument is very arrogant. Yes, normally the roads should accommodate the vehicles. But if you create an unnecessary big vehicle (only because you want to appear “green”, but you don’t have the technology to fit all that into your car), then something’s wrong with you and your cars. So we should sacrifice all great, legendary cars, so we can have big batteries inside F1 cars? I say sacrifice the battery. We’ll get smaller, lighter, faster, better sounding, better behaving and all in all much more attractive cars. And we’ll lose Audi and probably Mercedes, Honda etc., but I’m pretty sure some manufacturers would still be interested. It’s worth it, even if F1 turns to spec engines.
Dex
31st May 2024, 10:30
So we should sacrifice all great, legendary tracks* of course, my bad. God, I’m really one of those who need to edit their comments before posting… :)
anon
2nd June 2024, 12:42
Dex, you can find complaints that races at Monaco were processional due to the cars being too big back in the 1970s, when the contemporary cars of the time were the likes of the McLaren M23 – and you can’t exactly complain about hybrid power units being responsible for that.
Jere (@jerejj)
31st May 2024, 8:04
That depends on how you define ‘significant’ but cars will nevertheless get shorter & narrower, with the precise millimeter dimensions set by the FIA.
Simon
31st May 2024, 22:05
Occy you have surpassed yourself
EffWunFan (@cairnsfella)
1st June 2024, 2:27
Come on mate, this is so tiresome.
Fer no.65 (@fer-no65)
31st May 2024, 8:36
I still mantain that change in 2017 was so wrong in so many levels. They pushed for a 5 second laptime gain for absolutely no reason, increasing the size of the cars by 10%. That’s massive. Yes, the 2009-2016 looked ridiculous but F1 needs to have karts (not busses) with F1 level of power.
F1 in Figures (@f1infigures)
31st May 2024, 9:32
@fer-no65 That 5-second lap-time gain was even compared to 2015, when the cars were quite slow, not 2016. In fact, at most tracks, the lap-time gains made in 2016 were larger than those made in 2017. The harder tires played a huge part in this as well. Apparently, fans were complaining about tire-saving, so Pirelli had to make the tires harder, which had 3 (predictable) negative effects:
– Small lap-time gains in qualifying (as mentioned)
– Very little strategic variation, as most of time everyone was on a similar 1-stop strategy in the race
– Arguably more tire-saving, as the tires had to last longer and no-one wanted to make an extra stop (also because overtaking had become much harder)
As such, the 2017 rule changes were a massive failure, although racing improved again in 2018 and 2019, as Pirelli reverted some of the earlier changes. 2021 was arguably one of the best years of recent F1. The 2022 rule changes promised to improve racing, but so far I haven’t seen it. The most prudent thing for F1 to do is to admit defeat and go back to the pre-2017 narrow cars. With all the technological developments these cars should be mightily fast, while the racing should be better too.
Asd
31st May 2024, 9:55
I don’t know what you even mean by “size”. I hope you’re not attributing size to width, which would make little sense.
The 1990 Ferrari 641 had the following dimensions:
Total length: 447 cm
Total width: 213 cm
The 2021 Mercedes-AMG F1 W12 had the following dimensions:
Total length: 573.5 cm – 126.5 cm LONGER
Total width: 200 cm – 13 cm NARROWER
Fer no.65 (@fer-no65)
31st May 2024, 10:16
The only appropiate comparison is with the inmediate predecessor, man. The 2017 rules imposed wider cars compared to what they were the year before, and the lenght of the car was naturally growing for aero benefit as well. So it all came together and now we have huge, very heavy cars.
Asd
31st May 2024, 14:45
@fer-no65
The immediate predecessor of today’s cars are the 2017-2021 cars, of you want to go like that. So, current cars aren’t any wider or narrower than their predecessor.
That being said, yes, I agree with “now we have huge, heavy cars” – which EXACTLY means: the cars are too long, the wheels are too high and the cars are too heavy. It has nothing, zero, nada to do with their width, which is adequate and typical, and certainly not big.
MichaelN
31st May 2024, 15:15
Not no reason; the 2014 cars were extremely fast in a straight line but struggled in the corners in large part due to the much heavier V6 hybrid power units. The 2017 were meant to balance this out; reduce speed on the straights and increase it in the corners by having more aerodynamic and mechanical grip. Whether or not that was the right way to go is debatable, I guess. It certainly didn’t help overtaking.
Alesici
31st May 2024, 8:57
The cars could very easily be made shorter if the rules limited their length. Currently they all run with a long empty spacer somewhere between the engine and rear suspension. Its only purpose is to make the car longer to maximise the surface area of the floor and thereby the downforce. This design maximises the disparity between their amazing high speed cornering and the their barge-like clumsiness at slow speeds.
A rule change I would love to see would be to re-legalise skirts to physically seal the sides of the floor, replacing the invisible aerodynamic seal currently created by the aero details on the floor edges. These current aero seals stop working when following other cars’ turbulence, ruining racing. Skirts would not be affected by turbulence. If these skirts were combined with a homologated fan actively creating a vacuum under the car, they would have consistently high downforce regardless of how slow they were going, overcoming the current problem of their lazy slow speed handling. The fan would also further limit downforce lost when following other cars.
I very much doubt they will reduce the overall width, and I don’t think it’d be a good move. It’s the same 2m as it was at least 30 years ago, and it was wider than that for the 15 years before that. Something they could benefit from would be a reduction in the width of the floor and bodywork back to its pre-2017 width limit, as currently its design is optimised specifically to run in the turbulence of the car’s own tyres, leading to an unnatural shape which I suspect is more sensitive to losing downforce from other car’s turbulence. Reducing the bodywork/floor width whilst keeping the total car width the same would I think reduce this problem by separating the aero from the tyres.
Asd
31st May 2024, 9:49
“The current cars are also over 11% wider than they were eight years ago.”
That’s such a manipulative statement to make. The current cars at 200cm are the exact same width they were in 1997 and 9% narrower than they were in 1992 (when they were 220cm).
The oddly narrow cars of 1998-2016 (180cm) were pathetic, disgusting abominations of F1 cars, abominations of racing cars in general and shouldn’t serve as a comparative standard for anything. They were narrower than even F3 cars!
The gigantic size of current F1 cars lays in their boat-like length and nonsensically tall tyres.
anon
31st May 2024, 12:44
Asd, I believe that some of those operating this site have indicated that the period from 1998-2016 is during the period when they began watching the sport. That position may, like that of quite a few other posters, suggests there is some bias towards the notion of “that’s what it was like back in my day”.
MichaelN
31st May 2024, 15:22
So long as tracks need to be 12 meters wide at all times when hosting F1 races, with only minor exceptions granted to temporary tracks and only when it’s very unavoidable, a 2 meter wide car is indeed not a problem.
The length of the cars in combination with the extreme performance of the brakes is a much more pressing concern. And it’s also quite simple to solve as a lot of that length comes from simply wanting a longer car, not any space requirements due to the internal parts.
Tristan
31st May 2024, 10:41
As much as I detest agreeing with Horner (until these accusations are dealt with) he makes a fair point. It probably needs a bit of give and take on both the cars and the circuits side.
I don’t understand the reluctance to change things up at Monaco, remove a chicane or two at least, widen things to the maximum where possible. It would be better than losing the event all together or doing silly sprint races.
Phil Norman (@phil-f1-21)
31st May 2024, 11:27
Yes. I agree with this. It seems so obvious. Make the circuit better to keep the race. Things have to change everywhere if they wish to remain relevant. I would hate to lose Monaco from the calendar.
Alan Dove
31st May 2024, 11:57
When has race quality been a factor to whether a track is on the calendar or not? Monaco imbues F1 with the value that it requires to be recognised as the world’s #1 motorsport. Without it the ethereal prestige factor might wane. I think this over-rationalisation of Grand Prix and somehow grading them as if they are movies or a product on amazon belies where their value really lies.
Yes, in recent years Liberty have successfully been able to position themselves to have a bit more power over the place, but I am not sure they’d commit such self-harm because it’d open leave the series exposed. Would they want to a rival series to have Monaco exclusively on their calendar? It’s the world’s most famous race… would you really want Formula E (or something new) to claim to be home of the Monaco Grand Prix?
F1 starts to look very flaky once you remove the heritage venues.
anon
31st May 2024, 13:20
Alan Dove, I think there would be quite a few other events that would object to your claim that the Monaco Grand Prix is “the world’s most famous race” and say that it smacks of a rather Eurocentric world view.
Your argument also seems a bit self-contradictory, in that it relies on the argument that the prestige of the event comes from it’s heritage from being associated with Formula 1, but then rely on arguing that association can be broken and that heritage easily adopted by series that have little to none of the traditional values associated with the race to begin with.
Following your argument, what do we think would happen if Formula 1 stopped racing in Monaco and Formula E tried to claim that it was now the home of the Monaco Grand Prix? People like yourself still look down on Formula E as too much of a newcomer that doesn’t have any established tradition – you wouldn’t start heaping praise on Formula E as a “traditional and prestigious series”, your attitude suggests you’d be rather more likely to mock it for thinking itself as too much of an upstart.
Alan Dove
31st May 2024, 14:04
So? Labeling might work with other people, but not with me.
Despite your attempt of psychological manipulation which I’ll ignore because it’s not accurate, I will concede I should’ve added that there would be damage to Monaco if F1 left, no doubt. However the more significant damage would be to Formula 1 because it would expose them to competitors. Monaco is a place so it can never really have a ‘rival’. Monaco is Monaco and there can never be another…. but, there can be another single-seater development based race series.
I have issues with Formula E because of its spec-chassis and thus shouldn’t have World Championship status. But what I feel doesn’t matter. I think they’d be extremely happy to have Monaco for themselves, presuming Monaco felt it worthwhile to continue hosting races. I am not sure why F1 would give them this gift, or any other potential rival.
anon
1st June 2024, 8:48
Alan Dove, it is not a case of “labelling”, but rather an observation that you have repeatedly put forward a viewpoint that is shaped by where you were born and what you are accustomed to, and seem to therefore have a problem with understanding a viewpoint that comes from somebody who does not view the world through the same lens as you do.
If you are unable to accept that initial premise to begin with, then it becomes difficult to make you understand that people elsewhere will view the world in a different way to you and will place their priorities in different areas to you.
As for your arguments, the claim that “Monaco is a place so it can never really have a ‘rival’.” doesn’t really make sense when that can be said about any and every place that the sport goes to – if you apply that mentality to every circuit, then none stand out as being any more important than any other. So what that Monaco is Monaco? By that logic, you give the same uniqueness and value to Las Vegas as you do to Monaco, since there can never be another Las Vegas.
As for the argument that “However the more significant damage would be to Formula 1 because it would expose them to competitors.” – why doesn’t that apply to anywhere else that also has the traditions and heritage that you cling to so strongly?
Much of this seems to give the impression of self-reinforcement of the belief that Monaco is prestigious because you say it is prestigious.
Tristan
1st June 2024, 13:43
Monaco is prestigious though, it shouldn’t be denied. You can’t beat the sensation of someone driving through the field, in the wet, at Monaco. It’s a testament to driver prowess, talent, skill, all the great drivers have been able to showcase their ability at Monaco at some point in their career. I wouldn’t want to drive a car in anger there in the wet. I would certainly hit a wall, let alone a Formula 1 car.
F1 should never leave Monaco.
Tristan
1st June 2024, 13:44
that was mean to be a reply to @anon
Tristan
1st June 2024, 13:47
Also, this all comes back to Bernies sprinklers… It’s so dumb that it just might work.
stuart baillie
31st May 2024, 15:05
I think Horner is just trying to get rid of street circuits because the RedBull isn’t the best car on them…
Hopefully, they’ll crash and burn in 2026 and by that time he’ll run RedBull and instead we’ll see him complaining about the Premier League and Arsenal whilst he’s re- branding Leeds United to ‘RebBull Leeds Top Soccer’
Phil Norman (@phil-f1-21)
31st May 2024, 11:15
This makes me quite annoyed actually. I don’t think some of the leadership in F1 care if the racing is good or not. It’s all about money.
Where there’s a will there’s a way! I can only conclude that either the teams don’t see it as an issue, can’t be bothered or don’t want to spend the money on having the dimensions of the cars changed. I’m sure it must be possible. I would even be happy if they temporarily raised the budget cap to accommodate this.
I also read recently that there was a proposal going around that the wheel sizes be reduced to 16 inches but Pirelli vetoed this. The larger heavy wheels and tyres are adding to the problems.
This is simple to deal with. Put Pirelli on notice. They are totally useless anyway. Say that there is a call being issued for 16 inch tyres to be introduced from 2026//27/28 or whenever and if Pirelli don’t want to supply them, tough. Why should they have any veto on this. Assuming this is true of course.
mars
31st May 2024, 19:57
There is nothing wrong with the width of the cars. They are just too long (like showboats) and over weighted. Another problem is tyres, although they introduced ground-effects which is limiting suspension efficiency (due to highly increased downforce), they stayed with 18″ tires which have less damping effect due to a lower sidewall size. I think it would be more logical to get rid of ground-effect cars and reduce weight.
The Dolphins
31st May 2024, 21:00
I’d prefer a shakeup in specs but not for ’26 as I’d rather see the convergence of the field we get with stable specs. That said perhaps the pendulum has swung a bit much on the size of the cars; it would be nice to have them shorter and narrower with smaller wheels (16″ maybe) and a significant diet to reduce the weight.