AUGUST 13, 2026

Rules secured more than two Manufacturers

Ferrari and Mercedes would have been the only two manufacturers left in Formula 1 from the start of 2026 if the current Technical Regulations hadn’t been put in place. That’s the claim the FIA Single Seaters Director Nikolas Tombazis made during an exclusive interview with Grandprix.com the Greek seeming pretty convinced Audi, Ford and GM wouldn’t have decided to enter Formula 1 and Honda wouldn’t have done a U-turn on its plan to leave the sport, if there was no move towards electrification.

Tombazis made no bones about the fact the drivers are very unhappy with the new regulations, stating that because “drivers are, by definition, quite demanding clients. I don't think we expected them to sugar coat it or to not speak their minds. So, we did anticipate a lot of these things they have complained about in the two years before the launch of the season, and we did try to make some adjustments, but we failed with the governance that was in place.”

That, the Greek engineer admitted that “it was realistically only to be expected,” then adding that “I think it's a bit of a shame that we had to wait until this late before we started to discuss things in May and get the package for 2027 and for 2028. I think we could have really done that a couple of years before, and then there wouldn't have been all of this discussion. Overall, it was always a challenging target to have close to 50-50 power split between the two parts of the Power Units.”

While the drivers are complaining to the FIA and Formula 1 about the rules, Tombazis made it clear that, first, the regulations were essentially agreed by the manufacturers now involved in the sport, plus Porsche, who pulled out, and that the Fédération was powerless to impose its own ideas. The FIA Single Seater Director reminded us that the 50-50 power split “was a very important position for the OEMs already participating, and frankly, even more so for those having to decide whether they wanted to be in Formula One or not.”

He then pointed out that one “shouldn’t forget that if we didn't have these rules in place, we would have just two Power Unit suppliers in Formula One, which I think would have been a bit of an issue.”

Clearly, Tombazis believes only Ferrari and Mercedes would have stayed on board, Audi, Ford, GM and Honda wouldn’t have opted to join in and Renault, who was seriously committed to completely electrify its road cars by 2035 would have pulled out anyway. He also revealed that “the requirement to have a much stronger electrical part did create these difficulties. As the first simulations came in, back in 2022 or so, we knew there were these issues but we were a bit too far down the line there to change things, and some people had committed too much resource, so that left us slightly on back foot at for the start of this season.”