The key lesson F1 has learned ahead of the next rule change

Motorsport photo During the enforced break caused by the cancellation of the Bahrain and Saudi Arabian Grands Prix, a series of high-level meetings are taking place to discuss potential changes to the Formula 1 rules introduced only this year. It's not unheard of for the rules to be adjusted in-season. And in the case of the new regulations, there was broad agreement among the stakeholders and the teams that the shift to greater electrification involved a learning process which would lead to tweaks at some point.

But what's certain is that the audience response to the new technical package has been more polarised than expected. While the stakeholders and many insiders feel the new style of racing has been positively received for the most part, it’s undeniable that a constituency of fandom doesn’t like it – and is expressing its dissatisfaction vocally. The root of the problem is that shift to a near-50/50 mix of power from the internal combustion engine and electrical motor.

This was agreed as long ago as August 2022, in a meeting of the FIA's World Motor Sport Council, where it was also decided that F1 would shift to 100% sustainable fuel and drop the MGU-H hybrid element. When these policies were rubber-stamped, F1's stakeholders were keen to keep the power unit manufacturers engaged – and potentially attract new ones – by following the wider automotive industry's direction of travel. At the time this was very much towards full electrification, given impending legislation against the sale of internal combustion-powered cars in many key markets.

In the interim between agreeing this principle and executing it, the mainstream automobile manufacturers have altered trajectory as idealism has crashed upon the rocks of realism. It's very easy for politicians and bureaucrats to sit in meetings and decide on timescales for phasing out the internal combustion engines, but rather more challenging to impose that will on consumers. As a result, F1 finds itself having to make the best of a fundamentally flawed concept – while the car manufacturers who influenced it put the brakes on their shift to full electrification.