F1 News: 2026 Development Needs To Stop, Suggests Formula One

When it comes to the development of the next generation 2026 F1 car, all teams, including the newcomers need to remain on the same page about when they start working on their cars to avoid handing over the new teams an undue time advantage. And for that, there is likely to be a rule that will hamper early starters.

Things have become more challenging after the introduction of the budget cap which has pushed teams to plan their development strategy much further in advance. The 2026 regulations will witness a huge shift in the rules and the power units and thus, teams want to be prepared early. But with little time in hand, that is bound to affect the cars for 2024 and 2025.

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Mercedes Chief James Allison was quoted by Auto Motor und Sport saying:

"The cards will be completely reshuffled. Everything that happened before no longer counts. Everyone starts with a blank sheet of paper."

Consequently, the development of cars for the next two years is extremely crucial since they won't be a world apart from each other. In addition, developing a near-perfect car for 2024 would set the basis for 2025, thus offering more time to the teams for the 2026 machine.

However, starting the development for the 2026 car much in advance, especially for the newcomers could be stopped by a rule in the near future. A real-world example can be taken from the Alfa Romeo Sauber F1 team that is lined up to be taken over by Audi in 2026.

The CEO of Sauber Andreas Seidl stated that in 2025, not much work would go into the car of that year as most of the resources would be diverted toward the development of the 2026 car.

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Such examples have caused technical chiefs of the existing teams to host consultations in recent weeks. The report suggests that a majority of the chiefs agreed that the aerodynamic development of the 2026 car in the wind tunnel and CFD simulations should not begin before 2025. But there is no confirmation of a rule being enforced in the near future yet since it would need an intervention from the FIA and the F1 Commission.