As Stefano Domenicali urges "don't panic" following a less than favourable reaction to the new formula, FIA single-seater director, Nikolas Tombazis admits that changes may be needed.

"The chef can drive them", "it's Formula E on steroids", were just two of the reactions as drivers finally got to stretch the legs of the 2026 cars.

However, over the last few weeks, various issues have been raised, including safety, the inability to overtake, the fact that racing will take a back seat to energy management and lots, lots more.

OK, nobody likes change, and there was bound to be some initial criticism, with some were openly damning of the revised formula before even sitting in the cars.

However, the fact that the criticism has been so wide-ranging and come not just from drivers but team bosses, causing Domenicali to utter the "don't panic" cry, suggests that there is reason to worry, and the FIA is ready to react.

"The cars are new," explains Tombazis. "Last summer and last autumn, a lot of people were driving the simulators and expressing huge concerns," he continues. "I think the comments in Barcelona and in Bahrain are certainly much better than what people said based on the simulator. But there are still some comments, like what Max said.

"We are completely conscious that we may need to make adjustments," he admits. "That has been a discussion we've been open about with the teams and the PU manufacturers for a long, long time. And with the drivers. So I think there are some ways that we can act as a sport to make adjustments in the rules."

Asked if there is a particular aspect of the rules that needs revisiting, he replies: "Potentially some of the rules to do with energy deployment."

"There wouldn't be any need for any change of your system," he insists. "It would be more how you run your system. Clearly, if you go to a power unit engineer, they would say, 'Well, that changes a bit the duty cycle. And if I had known it, I would have maybe done this slightly different' or whatever.

"We think we are not in a bad place where we are now," he adds. "But if there needs to be some adjustments following these comments, we will discuss them all collectively as a sport and do what's needed.

"If you take the comments that have been made in November or October or last summer, I think we are way, way better now. We've addressed a lot of the concerns. Have we addressed every single concern? No. I think there are some topics that are still open," he admits.

"Of course, it is very easy to say, yes, if the ICE was much bigger and the ERS was much smaller, there would be fewer of these problems, and that is true.

"We've known right from 2022 that the 50-50 power solution has challenges," he continues. "It's not new or a surprise. We've done a huge amount of work to work on how this energy is deployed. And I think we've done, in my view, 90% of the work to get to a reasonable place. There may be some adjustments as we've learned about the cars, and we are fully open to do that."

Of course, the first race is just a week away, followed by a Sprint in China. So when exactly could these changes be implemented?

"We are learning as we go along," he says. "And the first real test will be the first race, because here (in testing) they're not really racing each other. These changes do need a bit of discussion. There may be a few weeks of discussion, and we also need to go through the governance process. So, it's unlikely to be something between Australia and China, for example, but it's also not months and months.

"We'll take the decision for the best of the sport," he adds. "This is a marathon, not a sprint. I definitely hope that Australia will be exciting. But I don't think Australia is the... We have five years to go through, and we have very clear tools on how to act on things. We will see where we stand. And, as I say, discuss them openly and transparently, and do our best."

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READERS COMMENTS

1. Posted by JS, 11 hours ago

"I've been saying for years that 2026 was the worst formula in at least 3 decades
It's totally a stupid cave to the woke car companies that all tried jumping on the electric car bandwagon. F1 is not production cars, nothing about them needs to be similar to production cars anyway and it's narrow minded to not think that looking and being different to what granny drives to the grocery store in is part of what makes it exciting. The sport has finally tapped into social media and young people and has the strongest traction it probably ever has had. This is mostly down to personalities and connecting with the humans in the seats, not the cars and definitely not the electric motors. We as a sport don't need to give in on any decisions to the car manufacturers any more, they're all in massive trouble from all the money they've put into electric which has lost almost all of them many billions. The cars thankfully sound better this year but we all know we should go back to v10 or v12s with no turbo muffling the exhaust. And the longer it is left the more chance down the line cities and race tracks will not tolerate the increase in noise. Little things like the size of the wheel rims and tyres should go back to looking nothing like road cars, make them bonkers again with tiny rims, huge rears and smaller fronts. "

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2. Posted by Laps, 19 hours ago

"So now it’s official. FIA have ‘screwed the pooch’ with the 2026 Regs.
The only surprise is that anyone is surprised. If you create a committee to produce an engineering specification and fill it with mostly PR Practitioners what do you expect?
Let’s look at the highlights of the changes:
Triple the size of the electric motor.
Leave the size of the energy store ( from which it draws its energy) the same.
Reduce the ICE’s capacity to recover energy with the deletion of the MGU-H.
Attempt to confuse the Punters by using a combination of of mismatched Units-of-measure.

Anyway the bottom line is that the battery holds only 11-secs of energy at the full rate of the motor, hence the’drag-reduction’ focus.

My guess is that the ‘fix’ will be a derate of the the electric motor. It’s the only way they can avoid huge embarrassment at Silverstone, Monza and Spa with Drivers having to run brakes against ICE to recover energy. What a come down for our ‘hi-tec sport!"

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3. Posted by Tyrbiter, 21 hours ago

"@ffracer
Anyone with the word racer in his user name gets my vote, this new formula is something any proper racer would laugh at."

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4. Posted by Chester, 22/02/2026 13:43

"Full agreement, ffracer. So often, you are the voice of reason,"

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5. Posted by ffracer, 22/02/2026 13:01

""It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think that you're an idiot than to open it and remove all doubt. "

Mark Twain

This famous quote would best describe FIA golden boy Nicolas Tombazis, after his latest colossal mistake - to hold an ill advised press conference a week before the first race - confirming why Pat Symonds in good conscience resigned from the FIA months before while warning them profusely on his way out, why Stefano Domenicali took to this desperate tap dancing while trying to appease every team and manufacturer of their greatest fears with their alarming data... all in efforts to keep Tombazis, and his propensity for relentless dithering, away from the racetracks and, more importantly, any microphones."

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"We may need to make adjustments," admits Tombazis

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