Formula 1’s new technical regulations for 2026 spells the end for the ‘ground effect’ era introduced just three years ago.
While the current generation of regulations was intended to create closer racing, and arguably has not succeeded, its replacement was designed around a new engine formula. This will see cars generate more of their power electrically.Some have already warned this will have a negative effect on the racing. Red Bull team principal Christian Horner has predicted it will result in drivers slowing down and even dropping a gear on long straights on some circuits in order to maximise their energy recovery and deliver the fastest possible lap time.
Former Formula 1 test driver and Formula E racer Gary Paffett has shed new light on what next year’s grands prix could look like after driving a third-party simulation of a car designed to next year’s regulations. He suspects it could make F1 racing resemble what is seen in FE, where drivers tend to run close together early in the races to conserve their cars’ energy.
“If you get to a point where teams are using the amount of energy they’ve got available in different ways on different straights, then it could make a big difference,” Paffett explained in a video published by Canopy Simulations.
“In Formula E you have a point where you get a lot of lift-and-coasting, basically, to save energy. How your [engine] map is set up around the laps means that you’ll have strong areas and weak areas. And that could be the same thing: If teams have got their battery deployment in different areas then it could mean that there’s better overtaking opportunities.”
The simulation also indicated next year’s cars could lap within a second of current chassis. Paffett expects drivers will find the new car stronger on corner entries and weaker on exits.
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and
“Whereas the ’25 car has got really good grip and really good stability, sometimes it can be a bit lazy into the corners,” he said. “Whereas the ’26 car seems a bit more direct into the corners.
“For me the hardest thing to get used to with the ’26 car was the low-speed performance, especially on exits.”
“For me, the biggest difference and the biggest thing I struggled with with the new tyres, combined with the downforce, was just the low-speed,” Paffett explained. “So it’ll probably drive the teams towards looking at set-ups which improve traction, because it’s definitely going to be a limitation.
“Then if that’s still a problem, then during the races, drivers are really going to have to look after that side of things, not to overheat the tyres and get problems like that.
“Qualifying is going to be more difficult, I think, to nail a lap, because the car is just a bit more on the edge. But then into the race overheating the tyres is a massive thing. And especially now, even in the high speed corners when there’s less downforce, you’re stressing the tyres more and things like this.
“With the tyres being smaller, they’ll definitely take less load. So tyre wear and overheating and managing the tyres is definitely going to be a bigger topic in the ’26 car.”
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and
He predicted drivers will find next year’s cars more challenging to handle overall, which could also improve the racing.
“It was interesting after running the ’26 components and then going back to the ’25 car. It was a great car to drive because it was easy to drive. Then you change to the ’26 and suddenly it’s more of a challenge again.
“I think that’s what the fans want to see. The drivers are definitely going to be tested more than before and it also should make the actual racing more interesting.”
2025 Formula E Miami EPrix highlights
Miss nothing from RaceFans
Get a daily email with all our latest stories - and nothing else. No marketing, no ads. Sign up here:
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and
Formula 1
- 2025 Canadian Grand Prix weekend F1 driver ratings
- Why Verstappen’s claim Russell dropped too far behind the Safety Car was wrong
- Antonelli was counting down final laps in “very stressful” run to first podium
- Would the one-stop strategy Leclerc wanted have paid off? Canadian GP data
- Russell keeps Canadian GP victory as Red Bull fail in bid to promote Verstappen
Bullfrog (@bullfrog)
15th May 2025, 7:51
So the tyres are even crapper and there’ll be more management… When do the next new rules after these ones come in?
An Sionnach
15th May 2025, 11:14
Don’t encourage them – those might be even worse!
Coventry Climax
15th May 2025, 16:30
When even three year periods start getting called an ‘era’ now, you can make a fairly educated guess for yourself I suppose.
Please do encourage them.
Yes, it will be worse. Hopefully to the extent that it hits them in the pocket so bad that F1 is sold again, to a party that does understand what racing is actually about.
Tony Mansell (@tonymansell)
15th May 2025, 16:57
Clearly not f1 fans just whatever the online equivalent is of Eeyore.
PacificPR (@streydt)
15th May 2025, 23:18
Bring back the front engines!
MacLeod (@macleod)
15th May 2025, 7:52
That kind of remarks or comments doesn’t fill me with confidence at all. Removing groundeffects is silly they should ban all aero which is ‘lose’ (wings) or are fins (floor) so jagged things nono just smooth (may be formed but flowing) and you will see much beter racing.
Biskit Boy (@sean-p-newmanlive-co-uk)
15th May 2025, 16:58
Now that is something I would pay to see. Of course the lap times would be slower, but top speeds would be higher, braking distances longer and much less dirty air problems.
Imagine just taking the wings off for one race. A bit far fetched I know, but I’d love to see what happens.
The cars would be much more difficult to drive. I don’t think it would be carnage, but perhaps more incidents to begin with.
PacificPR (@streydt)
15th May 2025, 23:09
Like Formula Ford, now wings or aero elements at all – apart from the floor. Might work and might be much more interesting to watch.
Red Pill (@redpill)
15th May 2025, 8:04
Please, please make F1 less like Formula E.
Ferdi
15th May 2025, 11:59
Well, the fences or as someone called it ‘the prison race tracks’ from Formula E have already been adopted.
Picasso 1.9D FTW (@picasso-19d-ftw)
15th May 2025, 8:12
I’m really looking forward to this. I expect to see various drivers throwing their toys out if the pram as they struggle to get a handle on how to get the best performance from the cars, and surprising results as they learn how to maximise the new powertrain whilst racing others.
So yes, it might all turn out to be disappointing in the end, but the sport can’t stand still for fear of change, and the rules can be tweaked (but not too soon, please). And from what Paffett says the new regs might actually add a dash of spice.
Coventry Climax
15th May 2025, 16:33
That’s to be expected from someone who actively promotes a Citroën Picasso Diesel on a (mainly) F1 racing fan site.
Jere (@jerejj)
15th May 2025, 8:18
We’ll see, but I’m doubtful about Paffet’s estimation, which seems quite extreme.
Sonny Crockett (@sonnycrockett)
15th May 2025, 8:24
I hope we don’t end up watching races that consist of drivers preserving tyres and electrical energy over racing.
S
15th May 2025, 8:51
That’s a joke right?
When hasn’t F1 been about management and minimisation? It only became overly obvious once radios and telemetry came into use, but it’s always been there.
J765
15th May 2025, 8:58
Not always. Prost started it.
rprp
15th May 2025, 11:28
No he didn’t. Jim Clark was noted not only for his speed, but also his mechanical sympathy. Might not have been preserving tyres, but preserving the rest of the car (while maintaining speed) was also one of his talents that set him apart.
Still visible today. Hamilton was consistently lighter on fuel usage (which they showed that data) than Rosberg was. And easier on tyres, yet faster, than Bottas was. We’ve seen it with Vettel and Verstappen too.
An Sionnach
15th May 2025, 11:45
I suppose what made Prost, Lauda, Clark and Fangio so great was that if they did save something, it would be to unleash it when it counted. They could out-drive the “fast” drivers when they wanted to (like Fangio at the Nordschleife in 1957). It wasn’t just saving tyres all race to do nothing and have no ambition to move up through the field. There’s a lot of telemetry available now and drivers let engineers dictate the strategy. The greats we’re talking about here understood telemetry before it existed to some extent. I think they understood it more than it is understood now. We’ve seen a few examples over the last year where drivers have ignored their team’s advice and profited from it. The engineer’s perspective is important and should be considered, but the driver has to learn to use this information and also respect his own experience. Piquet has said that he would not get on as well today since the engineering part is done for the driver. Fangio was a mechanic and knew it was important to have the mechanics on his side. By knowing what you can do as a driver, you can still add something on top of all the numbers, something the engineers cannot understand.
An Sionnach
15th May 2025, 11:31
Prost learned a lot from Lauda. Fangio liked to win by driving as slowly as possible.
There have been rules in the past where only a certain number of races count towards the championship. Those help drivers whose mentality is win or crash out. Without such rules, coupled with deference for drivers who are bigger than the sport, Prost might have won from 1988 – 1990… and winning the championship in 1990 for Ferrari might have gotten him the support he needed to take more of a leadership role in the team in 1991. It is Ferrari, though, so they probably would have dropped the ball with the car and fired him no matter what! If there were no Senna or Mansell championships then Prost would be even more despised.
Alesici
15th May 2025, 15:59
It was much easier for Prost to preserve his tyres because his car and driver combined weight was about 14kg lighter than Senna and 23kg lighter than Mansell. He retired just before they changed the rules to account for the driver’s weight when determining the minimum allowable weight.
An Sionnach
15th May 2025, 19:10
You mean he retired “just” before they introduced the minimum driver weight in 2019? I checked this the last time someone made this claim. Was that you? It would have been interesting to see what might have happened had Prost been at Williams in 1994. He preferred that car to the 1993 one when he tested it. If Schumacher had been inflicted by the same penalties as he had against the Briton, then I’m fairly sure Prost would have won that year, too. Otherwise, I’m not sure. Prost was getting on, but he still got pole and won the karting race against Senna, Herbert and others at the end of 1993.
An Sionnach
15th May 2025, 19:54
I’ve got weights of 76 – 78kg for Mansell (1992), 70kg for Senna (1993) and 59kg for Prost (1993). Mansell is 1.8m, Senna was 1.76m and 1.65m for Prost.
BMIs
Mansell: 24.1
Senna: 22.6
Prost: 21.7
Prost’s is at about the same level as an all-rounder in professional cycling, so that might be about optimal in terms of fitness. Senna could have lost about 2.8kg and Mansell about 7.7kg. This isn’t an exact science, but while most drivers at the time could have done with doing more fitness work, Mansell was so far off that a lot of his problem was staring at him in the mirror.
An Sionnach
15th May 2025, 19:59
I’m 1.85m and 70kg. Taller than Mansell. Do a lot of cycling and some climbing. I do a decent amount of cycling and some climbing. I don’t even compete at amateur level. If I was a professional athlete I’d do more than play a few rounds of golf while Piquet and Prost did the testing… and do more work on my fitness than Senna did when he was “resting”.
An Sionnach
15th May 2025, 21:43
I see the minimum weight for the car was increased in 1995 and included the weight of the driver, which it hadn’t before. This was two years before Prost retired.
Alesici
16th May 2025, 8:45
Yes, it’s not the first time I’ve raised this topic, so it was probably me.
That’s correct, it was the start of 1995 when the limit started including the driver’s weight. But you’re wrong – Prost’s last race was at the end of 1993.
My memory from back then believes that Senna and Mansell were 2-3 kg heavier than your numbers. I agree on Prost’s 59kg.
And yep, perhaps Mansell should have done more on fitness. Many of the drivers back then probably should have. But there’s no denying Prost enjoyed a major benefit from being short and light due to the regulations of his era. I feel that’s unfair, as this is the driving world championship so should primarily be a test of driving skill.
StefMeister (@stefmeister)
15th May 2025, 14:08
Exactly, Some element of management has always been a part of F1 and likely always will be.
The cars weren’t always as reliable as they have been the past 15-20 years and so drivers managing the car to ensure they finished races but also knowing they were probably going to be using that car and all of the components on it including engine, gearbox & in some instances the brakes for multiple races.
And of course you had a lot of fuel management during the turbo era in the 80s, especially when fuel capacity for the turbo cars began to be more heavily restricted.
And even during the refueling era you still saw drivers doing some management which is why races such as Hungary 1998 where Michael Schumacher was asked to drive flat out for something like 20 laps stood out above the other races. Seeing drivers pushing flat out over a full stint like that was not the norm and never has been.
As I think it was Fangio originally said and Stewart, Lauda and Prost later repeated. The purpose of a Grand Prix is the win by going at the slowest possible speed.
Tony Mansell (@tonymansell)
15th May 2025, 17:03
Its not really that they are or have ever been consistently at ten tenths. Its when they are not, they look tepid. Track surface, suspension, power steering, driver skill and fitness; all of these things mean if you are driving at 8 tenths its dull dull dull. Whereas from Fangio until these LWB boats, the cars still looked alive. Go and watch Spa 2008 and the dice between Kimi and Lewis. The cars look on a knife edge, now they look like they are buried in butter.
StefMeister (@stefmeister)
16th May 2025, 15:55
@tonymansell That I agree with.
Cars are too long and heavy which makes them look more sluggish than they once did and then as you say you have things like power steering which takes away some of the physicality. And then the power steering along with the smoother track surfaces that we have now also takes away some of that visual feedback which used to make things look a bit more challenging & dynamic.
S Arkazam
15th May 2025, 9:07
That’s promising, but only seeing is believing.
bernasaurus (@bernasaurus)
15th May 2025, 11:27
The problem with ‘challenging’ is that drivers figure it out eventually. We won’t be seeing drivers spin out whilst leading.
I quite like these regs. The cars are separated by the tiniest of margins. Drivers really make the difference (Max being the most obvious example). It wasn’t so long ago that losing out on pole by a tenth was considered close, it’s now hundredths.
Is it perfect? No. But I’ve enjoyed this ‘ground effect era’. The cars are too big and sometimes it looks like their driving a bus. But it’s close. Closer than I remember F1 ever being.
Jeanrien (@jeanrien)
15th May 2025, 12:27
Agree and I’m surprised by the article stating the current rules have failed to deliver closer racing. Cars car definitely stay closer for longer than during the previous regulation that was catastrophic in that respect, they could attack for few laps before having to back off. Cars will never do laps after laps side by side or exchanging position.
That said, I’m in favour of cars sliding a bit more when pushed, and not snapping out of control because aero is lost.
Quite a thorough analysis from Paffet there and I like the fact he connects some effects with their origin.
S
15th May 2025, 12:52
The cars are certainly closer than with previous ruleset – but that hasn’t necessarily improved the racing.
Likely true – but that should still be the aim when creating technical regs, particularly in regard to aerodynamic turbulence, downforce and drag.
Tony Mansell (@tonymansell)
15th May 2025, 17:04
+1. Qually is as good as its been and actually the season is proving to be a good one but the culture online is just moan about everything, even rules that haven’t come in yet
tielemst
15th May 2025, 13:00
Seems RedBull are live testing that car for a few years already
Esmiz (@esmiz)
15th May 2025, 13:43
I normally like changes, and I always try to give new regulations a chance when they come out, but I think the FIA is still confusing things (in my opinion):
1- The fans doesn’t want “more overtaking”. We want a fight on the track. Today, on many tracks, there are hundreds of “motorway-style” overtaking maneuvers that are exactly as boring as watching everyone else race in a row. They are indefensible overtaking maneuvers, and they’re not fun at all.
2- When it comes to tires, I think they’re also wrong. It’s not about making them “easier” or “difficult” or softer or harder; it should be about being able to push. If a driver knows that a failed overtaking attempt means they’ll have to slow down in the next five laps to get their tires back to their “optimal performance,” what they’re going to do is not try to overtake. And if they don’t do it on their own, the engineers will force them to. It’s about having wheels that don’t have to operate within such restrictive parameters that anything out of the ordinary would damage them to such an extent.
3. I think it’s good that cars are more difficult to drive. But at the same time, I think it’s more important that the car feels agile and twitchy than outright difficult. Current cars look like trucks in slow corners, and from what Paffet says, it doesn’t seem like that’s going to be much better.
Tom
15th May 2025, 23:46
Upvote. Plus current regs theyre too big and too perfect, on perfect tracks. It looks like Scalextric or a TGV. Perhaps technically impressive, but as viscerally exciting as a spreadsheet. So new regs are very welcome except… the only thing worse looking is… Formula-E.. sigh.
Mig29smt
15th May 2025, 14:21
They took the worst feature from F.E and brought in to F1. I despise Formula E sail race and energy saving. It has no place in F1, drop the engine reg if it’s necessary until is ready to do real racing and not a lift and coast competition.
baasbas
15th May 2025, 15:23
@Mig29smt
… fanboost
… power zones
Hazel Southwell (@hazelsouthwell)
15th May 2025, 16:41
Fanboost hasn’t existed for years and I genuinely don’t know what the other thing you’re referring to is
baasbas
15th May 2025, 19:22
@hazelsouthwell
It was that attack mode that you could activate by driving over a specific zone. I don’t know, maybe they dropped that too.
See how good they are at repelling fans, I haven’t looked back since :-)
Alec Glen (@alec-glen)
15th May 2025, 15:14
People are quick to forget that a race is a 300km grand prix, it’s not a dash to the shops. There will be and always has been management involved. What we don’t want to go back to is the early Pirelli days of cars handling like shopping trolleys and random winners. It sounds like the new formula is built for the driving styles they switched to back then anyway, everything in straight lines, quite a shift from today’s approach to providing a consistent aero platform.
It’s formula 1, we’re here to watch the best people squeeze performance out of driver and machine, fingers crossed that’s what it at least looks like.
Alesici
15th May 2025, 16:14
In some of Formula E’s peloton races last year, it was the only racing category ever in which the appearance of the safety car would actually spread the field out! I’m not kidding.
I enjoy F E, but I don’t want Formula 1 to become more like it.
Though in one way, F E will be becoming more like F1. Next year’s Formula E cars’ power during qualifying will be upgraded to 805bhp – 80% of that of F1. With very similar weight, four wheel drive and minimal drag in comparison (due to neglible downforce), it would be very interesting to see how they compared in a straightline drag race from standstill. I predict F E would start ahead, F1 would catch up somewhat, then F E would pull away again. An irrelevant test, but technically quite interesting to me.
Alesici
15th May 2025, 16:28
Ah, I now see Formula is going from 850kg including driver to 980kg including driver. (it’s getting a 43% larger battery). The difference between F E vs F1 car width is also being reduced 3x next year. So with F1 instead getting a bit lighter and lower drag, that straight line race could be pretty close. The winner would depend on the distance.
Alesici
15th May 2025, 16:30
Oh, and F E Gen 4 is not at the start of next year – it’s at the end.
MichaelN
15th May 2025, 22:00
Yes, but how likely is that given that they can recharge 9MJ per lap but only store 4MJ. It’s not like FE at all, in that those cars have a much bigger battery to get them through the whole race where they need to manage the use of that energy carefully. F1’s 2026 rules are precisely meant to rapidly charge and deplete the ES, multiple times per lap.
I’m genuinely confused why so many people seem to think F1 hasn’t figured out how to do a simple calculation as to how long it takes a 350 kW motor to deplete a 4MJ ES. Spoiler: it’s 11 seconds. Now of course they’re not going to have cars that can only use 11 seconds of the motor on an average 90 second lap. Think what you will of F1, they’re not that silly.
That’s why F1 limits the motor output relative to speed and that’s why they brought in the moveable aero. That’s the whole point: they aren’t meant be using 350 kW all the time.
guy cappucci
16th May 2025, 4:27
Another brilliant idea. Copy E series which is terrible. bring back v10 and run as fast as u can on good tires.