FIA targets pre-Australian GP solution to Mercedes engine saga

The FIA’s single seater director Nikolas Tombazis says the governing body hopes to reach a pre-Australian Grand Prix solution to the ongoing engine saga.

This update comes after Cadillac F1 CEO Dan Towriss claimed that all rival engine manufacturers are united against Mercedes. It is a dispute which centres around compression ratio with the new Formula 1 engines, with reports having pointed to Mercedes as a manufacturer which has exploited a loophole.

FIA working towards Mercedes engine solution

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New 50/50 biofuel and electric engines arrived in Formula 1 for 2026. Reports over the off-season claimed that two engine manufacturers had found a way to exploit the compression ratio wording in the new regulations.

Mercedes and Red Bull Powertrains Ford were widely named as the two manufacturers in question, with subsequent reports suggesting that Red Bull had joined the opposition to Mercedes.

Cadillac F1 CEO Dan Towriss strengthened that claim by stating that “unanimous views outside of Mercedes” had been reached as to the action desired from rival manufacturers, as talks continue with the FIA.

Tombazis, speaking in an FIA video alongside the organisation’s single seater technical director, Jan Monchaux, explained that lowering the engine compression ratio was a condition to bring new manufacturers into the sport, and give them a chance to compete against the established names.

With the regulations defining a 16:1 compression ratio, measured in cold, static condition, Tombazis admitted that “very clever” engineers have potentially found a way to increase that when the engine is running hot.

Tombazis stressed that the FIA wants competition on the track, not “in the courtroom or in the stewards room”, with a solution targeted before the season begins in Melbourne.

Audi and Red Bull Ford are the new power unit manufacturers for F1 2026, joining Mercedes, Ferrari and Honda, the Japanese manufacturer having been tempted to reverse its Formula 1 exit by the new engine regulations. Honda would partner up with Aston Martin.

“First of all, compression ratio is just a bit of very, very basic four stroke engine, which is what most road cars have had for the last 100 plus years, and what most racing cars have,” Tombazis began.

“An engine where there’s a piston, or many pistons, moving up and down and turning around a crankshaft, and when they move, the fuel and the air comes into the engine, and the piston moves down, then it moves back up again without producing any power. The other cylinders are pushing it up, and at that moment, it compresses the fuel and the gas, the air, into very, very small volume.

“So, how much fuel has gone in and air, to how much it actually compresses to, that proportion is the compression ratio.

“The more high that is… And then after that, you have a combustion of that mixture that pushes down and produces the power. So the higher that compression ratio is, the more, generally speaking, efficient the engine is.

“Now, you can’t overdo it. If you go too high, then you start having other issues, like it will get too hot, and then it will pre-combust, and that’s what we call knock. Sometimes you see that on your road car, maybe the older ones. If you’re in a very high gear and you’re going very slowly, you hear this knocking sound.

“So, it gets quite complicated to design those super sophisticated engines with that number being very high. And of course, we wanted, with these regulations, early days, to invite newcomers. And I think we’ve been quite successful.

“We have five PU manufacturers at the moment, and one on the way of coming into the sport [General Motors]. If we had not done those changes, I think we probably would have two by now, and we’d have only two, and that would have been a problem.

“So, because all of these newcomers have started way behind the established ones, we have to create some ways that would enable these newcomers to join the sport on a fair playing field, because otherwise, they would have been way behind.

“And as there’s a cost cap, as there’s limitations, they would have always been struggling to catch up.

“It’s still going to be massively challenging for them. It’s not an easy task, and that’s why part of the condition for these guys to come in was also to create some simplifications, some cost reduction also, and the compression ratio was one of those.

“That was one of the reasons we went from what used to be a limit of 18:1, which, frankly, was almost not a limit, because you could hardly reach that level, to 16:1, which is a bit of a compromise.

“And of course, as these engineers are very clever and always pushing for an advantage, some have found ways to potentially increase it when the engine is running hot, and that is the discussion we are having now.

“I mean, we’ve spent a lot of time with Jan discussing how we solve those issues, and I think our intention is to solve them for the start of the season.

“We don’t want to have controversies. We want people to be competing on the track and not in the courtroom, or in the stewards room, and that’s what we’re trying to do.”

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It was put to Tombazis and Monchaux that considering the scale of changes made to the regulations, even if the compression ratios saga is settled, another talking point could flare up in a different area.

With teams trying to uncover ways to find an advantage over the competition, it was suggested that the FIA must be especially vigilant.

Tombazis responded: “I think it’s also a numbers game we need to explain.

“Obviously, perfection is if there’s no discussion about any aspect of the regulation, if everything is completely as intended, no interpretations, everyone understands perfectly. That is our objective. That’s what we strive for. And I think we’ve made a lot of progress in that.

“When the regulations change a lot, a lot of unforeseen circumstances come about.

“We work a lot with the teams. When the PU manufacturers have meetings.

“Each team has maybe 200 engineers or so amongst the 1000 people working for the car, sometimes a bit more. So we have maybe 2000 engineers in the teams, and maybe another, I don’t know, 1000 or so in the engine and PU manufacturers.

“So it’s invaluable [sic] that amongst those many thousands, to the 10 or so, that sometimes they will come up with something that nobody has thought [of].

“It’s also, I think, quite significant to think that you have 11 teams and five PU manufacturers, and not all of those identify these weak areas, which means that you have 200 people in one team, and maybe out of those 200 people, nobody has thought there’s a little area to use.

“What I’m trying to say is that it’s a numbers game and a statistics game, and it’s impossible when we have new rules, not to have such areas of discussion. That’s always been the case.

“I think what has changed is that we are determined to make this a championship of competition between the best drivers, the best engineers, the teams, but not a championship of rule interpretation.

“We want it to be a championship of engineering prowess as well as driving prowess, but not actually just who’s a smarter rule interpreter.”

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