Charles Leclerc says 2026 power unit rules create perfect smokescreen

Charles Leclerc believes Formula 1’s radical 2026 power unit overhaul has handed teams the perfect smokescreen to hide the car’s true potential ahead of the Australian GP.

Although Formula 1 has rolled out all-new cars for 2026, it is the engine formula generating the most intrigue.

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From a compression ratio loophole to race start revs, the new power unit formula has rivals worried that someone else – namely Mercedes for the compression ratio and Ferrari for the launch revs – has gained a march.

Both topics are on the agenda this week in Bahrain. While it was initially reported that the Power Unit Advisory Committee could meet on Wednesday, it appears it’s just the four opposed to Mercedes’ loophole – Ferrari, Red Bull-Ford, Audi and Honda – who will meet up while the F1 Commission will sit down on Day One in Bahrain with race starts on the list of subjects to be ironed out.

Rival teams have talked up Mercedes power unit as the one to beat, while the Mercedes runners, led by Toto Wolff, insist its Red Bull – especially in energy deployment.

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Added to that, George Russell says when it comes to starts its Ferrari who holds the advantage, an advantage that Lando Norris says extends to the SF-26’s race pace.

No one, though, genuinely knows.

They don’t know the fuel loads, engine modes or programmes rivals are running, meaning any team could fudge the results if they wanted to.

Leclerc, who, along with his teammate Lewis Hamilton, finished second behind the Mercedes teammates at the opening test, believes there’s a lot of that going on at the moment. And the new PUs with their energy deployment and various modes, help muddy the waters.

“I think everybody is trying to throw the ball to the other guys. It’s normal at this point of the season.

“Also because it’s so difficult to understand. It was difficult with the previous generation of cars, but now with the hybrid and especially the electrical engine being so much more powerful, there are so many small tweaks that you can do, and you can hide the real potential of the car in many, many different ways now.

“So it’s very, very difficult for us to understand exactly where we stand.

“What I’m happy of is that we are going through our programme. We didn’t have any reliability issues so far. And this is a good start. Everything starts up with what we expected. So that’s a good base to then start to work on and to improve.

As for how he thinks things stand, the Ferrari driver reckons Red Bull has the advantage ahead of Mercedes with Ferrari third.

“I think Red Bull have shown very impressive things, power unit wise, since the start of the test, especially here. Mercedes are showing some very impressive things as well sometimes, but I will say they are hiding a lot more. And yeah, I will expect them to, especially to be a bit ahead of us. Then McLaren is a little bit more difficult to understand.

“But from where I stand now, it’s Red Bull, Mercedes in front and then us. But it doesn’t seem to be too much of a gap for now.”

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

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