24/04/2025
NEWS STORY
In a bid to prevent one-make domination, as happened post 2014, F1 is looking at engine convergence in 2026 and beyond.
Of the five grands prix this season Mercedes has won four. Indeed, since the beginning of the hybrid era in 2014, the German manufacturer has won 128 of the 233 races (54.9%).
This compares to Renault, which has won 16 (7.3%), Ferrari 23 (9.9%) and Honda 65 (27.9%).
Fearing that the new era could see another period of domination like that which Mercedes has enjoyed, even ahead of the 2026 overhaul the need for performance converging is already being considered.
When Fred Vasseur was asked in Jeddah about talk of equalising engine performance, the Frenchman's keen sense of humour was as to the fore as ever.
"I was trying to ask Andy before what the level of performance of the Honda engine is, but he didn't want to reply," joked the Frenchman as he sat alongside Aston Martin boss, and former boss at Mercedes HPP, Andy Cowell, whose team will be using Honda power units next season.
"And you didn't tell me the level of performance you're at!" laughed the Briton.
"Honestly, I think it's impossible to have a precise idea about the performance level of next year's cars and on the engine," admitted the Frenchman.
"We are not in a situation where we're just speaking about the ICE," he continued. "Drivability will be key, temperature will be key, the ICE will be key, the battery will be key. And I'm not sure that anyone knows what the others are doing.
"You can be king of the place in 2025, but the most important is 2026," he warned.
"It's very hard to just say it's about crank power, or battery, or heat rejection," added Cowell. "All of these parameters are traded off.
"There are compromises in order to come up with the fastest race car. And we're still many months away from the introduction point. I imagine that every single engineering team is looking at what they've got and going, "Ah, there are all these performance ideas. How do we get those in?" Then there will be a load of reliability issues - how do we solve those?
"The supply chain will be screaming because you're asking for both performance and reliability," he continued. "You just push really, really hard, and every single minute of every day counts.
"There are a lot of minutes before the first race. So someone who's in front at the moment might drop back. Someone who's behind at the moment might go forward. But how do you measure it?
"At the end of the day, it will be Melbourne 2026, in qualifying, that'll be the first time we really see all the different car types with the power units, with the new aero, new tyres, and so on and that's where the stopwatch will tell us where everybody is at with their cars."
In its determination to level the playing field and avoid a repeat of 2014, F1 CEO, Stefano Domenicali admits that nothing is off the table.
"Nothing prevents us from working to improve the package," he told Autosport. "The FIA, together with the manufacturers and teams, can always assess if there are areas for improvement.
"We're on the brink of a major regulatory shift," he added, "and I personally believe it's crucial that the system allows for a faster recovery if a manufacturer falls behind significantly. That's an issue we must address quickly, it could happen to anyone.
"Having one dominant team for too long is bad for everyone," he admitted. "Our sport is growing incredibly and has become a global benchmark. We should be proud of that, but also cautious."
And with Pirelli's Mario Isola admitting that the sport's sole tyre supplier, along with all key stakeholders in the sport, "must create the conditions for unpredictable and spectacular races" and that the Italian tyre manufacturer "wants to be proactive in this regard", the days of a genuine Formula One Script Unit draw aver closer.