Biggest regulation overhaul in a decade hits Melbourne

The 2026 season marks the dawn of a new era for Formula One. New names Cadillac and Audi are joining the grid, a brand new circuit in Madrid will debut in September, and the biggest rules shake-up in more than a decade is changing car appearances and engine regulations.

The cars will be smaller and lighter, and the engines will use fully sustainable fuel and more electrical power. Active aerodynamics have ended DRS, which has been replaced by Overtake Mode. In short, nearly every aspect of an F1 car is changing, and the teams still face unknowns.

Red Bull technical director Pierre Waché told The Athletic during the team’s season launch in Detroit that the main question mark he has is what the car’s balance requirements will need to be for the drivers to consistently hit the best lap times. As far as competition goes, the 11 teams face a clean slate.

McLaren may have ended the last regulation era with consecutive constructors’ championships, and Red Bull may have closed the gap with Max Verstappen on Oscar Piastri and 2025 world champion Lando Norris’ heels, but new regulations mean F1 won’t truly know the proper pecking order until cars hit the track for the first race in Australia in early March.

Active aero replaces DRS, Overtake Mode adds a price tag

F1 fans grew accustomed to the Drag Reduction System, introduced in 2011 and also a form of active aero. DRS was created to facilitate closer racing and help with overtaking by rapidly decreasing drag on a car as it chased another using a rear wing flap.

The 2026 technical regulation overhaul means DRS as we knew it is gone. The new active aero system still uses movable rear wing flaps, but now the front wings change shape too — and crucially, any driver can use it on a straight, not just drivers within a second of the car ahead. The main aim is energy efficiency — reducing drag on the straights so the cars don’t drain their batteries just to maintain speed.

The desire to boost overtaking remains, leading to the introduction of a dedicated Overtake Mode in the new, more powerful hybrid engines. The rules for its use are similar to DRS, with activation points around the track.

Drivers voiced concerns about its effectiveness compared to DRS during the preseason, which covered three tests.

"Our drivers have been racing with other drivers during these (tests) in Bahrain, and they found it extremely difficult to overtake," said McLaren team principal Andrea Stella. "The fact that you have an additional amount of (electrical) energy when you follow and you are within one second (of a car ahead, as with DRS), is difficult to exploit because this extra energy may mean that there’s just a little bit more deployment at the end of the straight, if anything."

How Overtake Mode works

Drivers need to wait until they are within a second of the car ahead to deploy an engine energy boost at a detection point. The FIA anticipates "the chances of an overtake occurring will also be increased by the leading car’s energy deployment tapering off after 290km/h, while the car behind can use the override for a full 350kW up to 337km/h."

In layman’s terms, the leading car’s power delivery tapers off as it harvests energy at the end of a straight — limiting acceleration — while a chasing car with Overtake Mode active can keep pushing to full power past that point.

Oscar Piastri said in early February that Overtake Mode works similarly to DRS, in that drivers can only use it in designated zones. He drew a distinction between Overtake Mode and the wing-opening active aero system that is replacing DRS.

"Before, it was an overtaking aid. Now it’s just to reduce drag and take some of the limitation away from the (engine)," he said. "It’s just a different purpose."

Mercedes driver Kimi Antonelli described F1 racing in 2026 as "speed chess." He added, "When you’re planning an overtake or when you’re defending, you always have to try and be two steps ahead of the other and trying to predict him or force him to do something." Antonelli also warned that closing speeds of cars using Overtake Mode compared to cars suddenly slowing as they harvest energy could be "very, very big."

As for those watching on, the overtaking process will look different. The wings on both cars will slim down on the straights, but only one will gain unseen extra power from its battery.

"DRS was quite nice in a way that it was very visual. You saw (the rear wing) pop open, and it was very easy to predict an overtake was happening," said Piastri. "Whereas now, you don’t have that visual reference."

Energy management changes the race

Even before Overtake Mode comes into play, parts of a track will be different. As a result of the increased electrical power in the new engines, both cars will accelerate faster out of a corner than the 2025 cars. This may make it harder for the chasing car to catch up.

Williams team principal James Vowles broke down the scale of the change for The Athletic in January. The MGU-K — the component that converts braking energy into electrical power — is now three times more powerful than it was in 2025. The same goes for acceleration out of corners. The result is a significantly larger pool of electrical energy for drivers to work with than ever before.

Drivers will also play a larger role in deciding how and when to use it during a race. They can now choose to hold back their electrical deployment through certain high-speed corner sequences — saving it, instead, for wherever it’ll do the most damage.

"You (could) save it for the next little bit (of track), and it’s a lot more dynamic than it was before," Vowles said.

Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc said he finds it "extremely difficult" to pass other cars, adding, "It might improve with time and how we manage these kinds of situations, but it always comes with a price whenever you’ve got to overtake."

"The price is a lot more costly than it was in the past," Leclerc said. "That’s why I think it’s very difficult to make an overtake and pull away, like it was the case last year."

Testing and expectations

Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies told The Athletic that his team expects "a huge development race and huge performance (between teams) swings" this year, as the pack learns more about this regulation era. He drew a comparison to 2025, which he described as "a fairly stable season" that still featured significant changes in which teams were fast, or slow, at different tracks.

"Take this performance swing, multiply by four or five — it’s probably what you are going to see this season," Mekies said.

The anticipation is that the private opening test in Barcelona in late January "will not be very representative," Waché said. The Bahrain International Circuit hosted two tests in February open to the media. "It’s so early in the season, and the gap between the first test and the first race is quite big, that gives opportunities to most of the teams to make an update for the race one," Waché said.

George Russell noted that the mode’s effectiveness may vary across circuit layouts. Circuits like Barcelona — which has only one major straight — will allow cars to build up a large reserve of electrical energy, since there are fewer opportunities to spend it. But that cuts both ways. As Russell noted, if every car is already pushing maximum power down that one long straight, an Overtake Mode boost offers less of an advantage: "when you use your boost, there’s not much of a gain."

Pierre Gasly made a fair point that the F1 world should keep in mind as the season progresses: "I think we just need to be open-minded and see how it’s going to be."

"I think it’s exciting. I think it’s going to be different," Russell said, before adding: "Time will tell."