Up Next
Formula 1 rule resets are often viewed as a great opportunity for teams struggling further back to get a head start and kick off the new era in front.
So as F1 braces itself for the revolution coming in 2026, that is why squads like Williams, Aston Martin and Alpine are sensing that it is worth sacrificing a bit of effort this year in return for greater gains over the long haul.
As Alpine’s executive technical director David Sanchez told The Race: "I keep telling everyone that when we look at the regulations for ‘26, we all start in the same place [aero development for 2026 was allowed from January 1].
"When I look at the infrastructures we have, the tools and the people, it’s a great opportunity to reset everything we can. We can genuinely aim to have a competitive car."
Writing off a season if you are fighting in the lower reaches is quite a logical thing to do, but going down that route is much harder – in fact, almost impossible – for those battling at the front.
Being in the hunt for a world championship is not something that can ever be taken for granted. So finding yourself in a position where the title is in your sights means you have to go for it.
It’s not only important from a financial perspective – with tens of millions of pounds of sponsorship and commercial rights income on the line – but it’s also critical from a psychological perspective.
Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur admitted as much last year as he eyed the challenge coming for 2025.
"I think we are not all in the same situation," he said. "I think if you are Alpine or Aston Martin, then you have probably more temptation to go for the new regulation. Also you have more windtunnel time.
“If you are one of the top four today, you carry over the car and you know that you will be into the fight for [2025].
"It's difficult to give up a championship. Even for me personally, to go on for 24 races, if you know that you didn't do your best, it is harsh - even for everybody in the team, as we are racers."
Vasseur’s mindset probably rings true for all the top outfits as those fighting at the front know they are going to have to devote resources to the current car for as long as needed – which obviously means taking some attention away from work on the future project.
And that is counter to what teams ideally want: which is to give up as little as possible for 2026 – especially knowing full well that a day in the windtunnel working on the 2025 car will only deliver a fraction of the gains that could be made compared to being focused on next year.
"I think all teams will be looking at their start to the year to work out when can they jump fully to 2026," Andrew Shovlin, Mercedes' head of trackside engineering, explained.
"The reality is the development rate on your 2026 car should far outstrip your '25 one.
"Therefore, every week on '25 you're losing multiple weeks on '26 in terms of the ground that you've got to make up."
History has plenty of examples of the transition into new rules eras hurting those outfits that had to keep resources and attention on their current cars while others toiled away months in advance on their future challengers.
Honda knew that its 2008 campaign was not looking great so it threw everything at new regulations for 2009. And while that did not pay off for the Japanese manufacturer, as it quit F1, its successor Brawn GP had a huge head start.
Its advantage was further helped by the previous season’s title contenders, McLaren and Ferrari, having taken that title fight to the final round and pushed their car development until the end.
Even the most recent transition into the current ground effect era in 2022 initially showed this theme, too. Red Bull and Mercedes were compromised early on as a result of their 2021 title battle - while Ferrari, which switched development early, hit the ground running.
The gains in moving early could be even more extreme this year than the past though, because F1 is now operating under two separate restrictions that put teams on a more level playing field in terms of resources.
In the past, top squads could mitigate the longer-term impact by simply hiring more staff or spending more money on separate development projects that ran alongside the current car work.
But under F1’s cost cap rules and the aerodynamic testing restrictions (ATR), such an option is not there any more.
Teams now have a clear limit in terms of how much can be spent, plus they will have to choose how much of their windtunnel and CFD work is devoted to 2025 and how much is given over to next year. You cannot simply just do more of both.
Compromise will be the name of the game in playing off 2025 ambitions versus 2026 hopes, with Red Bull team boss Christian Horner labelling it a “tough balancing act".
But what makes things more fascinating than usual this season is that we could be braced for an unprecedented four-way fight for the world championship.
If last year’s form rolls over into this season, which normally happens with evolutionary rules, then McLaren, Ferrari, Red Bull and Mercedes could all be mixing it up in that battle at the front.
And if things remain super close, then that opens the scenario of them all forcing each other to develop much longer than they wanted.
None of them are going to want to blink first and abandon the fight knowing what is at stake – which means they all face the nightmare scenario of having to keep on developing much longer into the year than they ideally want to.
The desire not to be dragged into developing the 2025 cars any longer than necessary could explain why teams are perhaps being more aggressive than normal at this stage to push on with things - so their baseline is more advanced than normal.
McLaren did not hold back in being aggressive in late 2024 with its development of the MCL38, and the team has openly talked about some ‘brave’ ideas that are coming for its 2025 challenger.
The hope is clear that the package that starts the new season is going to be strong enough not to need much development work to stay competitive.
Speaking at the end of last year, McLaren boss Andrea Stella explained how the squad’s 2024 update programme was heavily influenced by thoughts for 2025.
"The main thing was how do we approach '25 considering we have a car with which we can fight," he explained.
"We felt we needed to invest in the '25 car to make sure we’re in position to keep the car at this level. As soon as you don’t develop very much, you drop.
"At the start of '24 we were the fourth-quickest. We needed to make sure we gave enough momentum to our development of the '25 car to be competitive next year, and we adapted the '26 requirements around this.
"I guess maybe some teams are more focussed on ’26. It depends where you are competitively. We thought we needed to keep attention on the '25 car."
The decision by any of the top teams to give up on the fight will ultimately be dictated by the numbers.
If a team knows that a couple-tenths gap to the leaders cannot be closed in the short term, then that will be enough of a reason to switch focus to the new car.
Until that moment comes though, frontrunners are going to face up to the nightmare of keeping things ticking over for 2025 – knowing full well that others could be getting further and further ahead with their 2026 designs.
