A 'delightful move'? Our verdict on F1's big 2027 engine shift

Formula 1 has - in principle, at least - agreed to make fundamental changes to its engine rules that can be fast-tracked in for 2027.

And that means the early demise of its much-vaunted, highly divisive '50/50' split (or the notion of it) in power between the internal combustion engine and electrical output.

Considering this comes just four rounds into the 2026 season, and not long after F1's most senior figure dismissed any suggestion that there were problems to fix, is this an own-goal for the championship? Or should we all just be relieved that things will change?

Here's what our team think:

F1 can't just shrug this off

Scott Mitchell-Malm

Given this comes with a potential option to increase battery capacity - subject to agreement and timing - I'm fully in favour of this change.

F1 had a technology/regulatory limitation: what it permitted in terms of charging and deployment, married to the chosen battery and MGU-K capacities, were simply incompatible. There is not enough energy to cope with what the engine is capable of producing and what the rules permit on deployment, while maintaining an acceptable spectacle.

It was, and still will be at times this year, a nonsense that F1 has this glorious total engine power peak that is only ever reached sporadically on a qualifying lap and is packaged in so much complexity. So the fact this is being addressed is absolutely a good thing.

I hope that this doesn't just get shrugged off as 'easy to say in hindsight we should have done X', either. F1 and the FIA need to learn lessons from this process and make sure they don't sleepwalk into needing to unpick the rules so quickly ever again.

Because this corrective action could, and probably should, have been done sooner. There are elements of this that were not just being suggested years in the past, but were actively discussed - and dismissed - last year. And raised again during pre-season. There were opportunities to correct things by enforcing a power reduction for qualifying, for example. And I don't think we need to race the cars to know that for sure.

At the same time, I don't mind the principle of 'let's see how it goes rather than knee-jerk'. As long as nobody tries to argue this isn't knee-jerk. Unless they admit in the same breath that it's been methodically mapped out because they knew all these problems were coming and just let them happen...

A delightful move

Ben Anderson

This is a delightful move. A victory for sense over hyperbole.

It's not these crappy '50/50' engines completely in the bin, but it's a massive step in the right direction - that hopefully means next season won't be a farce of super clipping, energy starvation, drivers being complete passengers to deployment algorithms and getting punished for driving corners properly, with commitment and daring rather than in complete servitude to recharging their batteries.

It's also a ridiculous thing for F1 to have done, effectively binning the essence of its brand new engine formula after just four races!

Despite everyone invested in F1 2026 trying to stay 'on message', this is the clearest indication yet that deep down everyone realises this new formula doesn't work, and that Max Verstappen's vocal complaints weren't simply an act of petulance because Red Bull's season started badly.

Handling of it leaves a bad taste

Jack Benyon

If I wasn't annoyed enough at F1 already for sleepwalking into a disaster of a set of regulations that people explained ages ago had obvious flaws which have come to pass, I've found the next steps even more frustrating.

Expertly questioned by Edd Straw and Jon Noble, F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali made it seem like questions about shortcomings in the regulations were over the top and that the majority of people like the 2026 style of racing.

There's actually a PR win to be had here for F1 - and the FIA - in that it has acknowledged the need for change so early in the season and acted. Setting aside that it should have seen these issues coming and reacted a lot sooner, the fact it has been so flexible and fleet of foot to adapt is a real outlier in the world of modern sports.

Instead, I'm left with a sour taste in the mouth at how parties involved resisted the initial criticism and, in my opinion, disrespected the fans, who are far more intelligent and understanding than they've been given credit for.

Who was loudest about the need for change?

Glenn Freeman

I'd love to know which stakeholders were the most dominant voices in getting these changes made so quickly.

After a very divisive start to the new regulations where fans who complained about the 2026 formula were effectively told to stop living in the past and to embrace the new, chaotic, supposedly exciting F1 of the future, it's only taken a handful of races for significant change to be 'agreed in principle'.

So assuming it wasn't fan backlash (which F1 seemed happy to dismiss, in public at least), was it the drivers, the teams, the manufacturers, or important external forces like TV companies and race promoters who helped force this over the line? Maybe it was a combination of all of them.

I'm surprised the 2026 package wasn't given longer to see if it would settle down, but perhaps the extremely clever people behind the scenes with endless amounts of data at their disposal already have enough evidence to show that even once these rules become more familiar to everyone, the on-track package is always going to be flawed.

Regardless of how we got here, I'm impressed that action has been taken so quickly. The worst thing you can do if a mistake has been made initially is to stick your head in the sand and hope that it will either work itself out eventually, or that in time people will get over it.

To see such swift action from F1 is a pleasant surprise.

A move that's true to F1's best characteristics

Edd Straw

It's to the credit of all the stakeholders involved in the decision, manufacturers included, that there's been an acceptance of the fundamental limitations of the power unit concept. No matter what fiddling around the edges, the numbers simply did not add up and the need to paper over those cracks was at the heart of the problems compromising the challenge of F1.

It would have been easy to stick with a dogmatic approach about the necessity of the notional 50/50 power split and resisted such changes on this timeline, and frankly I was concerned that this was the chosen path given the messaging across F1. On this occasion, it's good to be proved wrong although this is the result of the slow realisation that the laws of physics simply would not allow the power unit concept to work.

It doesn't mean the power units will be perfect in 2027, but it's a significantly bigger step in the right direction than the changes for Miami. Regardless of exactly who pushed for this and the balance of voting that made it possible, it reflects well on F1's governance that this has been allowed to happen.

This is the right trajectory, and while it will take the new engine formula to correct everything, provided the details are finalised to make these 'in principle' changes for 2027 then it will be a win given the are limitations on what's possible on this timeline. Hopefully, the lessons of how F1 got here are learned because even with the world as it was when the rules were originally formulated, a better implementation of that direction was possible.

F1 at its best is nimble, data-driven, pragmatic and performance-focused. This move is in the true spirit of those characteristics.