New regulations years in Formula 1 are the closest thing the sport has to a reset button, and 2026 pressed it harder than most.
The new power unit regulations — smaller displacement, more electrical power, active aerodynamics — have produced cars that look like nothing we’ve seen before. The front wing is almost vestigial. The rear wing morphs on the straight. The sidepods are aggressive in a way that reminds me of the 2009 Brawn, but sharper.
Who it’s helping
The midfield has compressed. Teams that couldn’t attract the right aero talent to exploit the previous regulations have closed the gap significantly. This is partly because the new rules favor clean-sheet thinking, and partly because several top-team designers defected to midfield outfits over the last three years.
I won’t name names. But the lap time deltas in qualifying have been, by some margin, the closest I’ve seen since 2012.
The spreadsheet says
I’ve been tracking pit-stop delta times against tire age since 2019. Yes, this is strange behavior. No, I don’t regret it.
What the data shows for 2026 so far: the undercut is more powerful than it was in 2025, probably because of the increased electrical deployment under braking giving an advantage on cold tires. Teams are factoring this into their strategy more explicitly. We’ve seen aggressive reaction undercuts in round two that would have been considered premature under the old regs.
The vibes, though
All of that is in the spreadsheet. What the spreadsheet doesn’t capture is the sound. The new power units are different. Higher-pitched. More mechanical. I watched round one from a café with the sound off and it still felt different — the car behavior, the way they rotate under braking, the micro-corrections from the active aero.
It’s weird. I love it.