Just four races into Formula 1’s new era, the peak of electrical power’s influence on the international open-wheel series may already be in the rearview mirror.
This past Sunday’s Miami Grand Prix was the first race held under changes that slightly limited the role of the electrical power that has redefined racing on the storied circuit in 2026. The president of the governing body, the FIA, said in Miami he wants traditional V8 engines back in a few years’ time.
F1 started the year with some of the biggest changes in its 76-year history, headlined by a 50-50 split in power between a traditional engine and the onboard battery pack.
There were only three GP races under those new rules before a package of tweaks was introduced that curbed the influence of the electrical power. They answered driver criticism by promoting pure driving skill over electrical recharging, especially in qualifying. Discussions on further changes for 2027 could continue that trend.
The Miami GP was one of the most wide-open races in recent F1 history, with drivers from four organizations leading before 19-year-old Mercedes driver Kimi Antonelli earned his third straight win.
When Mohammed Ben Sulayem, the FIA’s president, first proposed a return to big, noisy traditional engines last year, some F1 figures thought it was an election tactic, and it fizzled out in a meeting with manufacturers.
Now with Ben Sulayem in office for another term, and after a backlash to electrical power from some key drivers and fans, his push for V8 engines by 2030 or 2031 seems much more serious. The F1 world typically plans out new regulations years ahead of time.
“You get the sound, you get less complexity and then you’ve got the lighter weight, you hit all the boxes,” Ben Sulayem said last Saturday in Miami. “You will hear about it very soon, and it will be with a very, very minor electrification, but the main one will be the engine.”
F1 has used V6 engines with electrical hybrid power since 2014, and a big step up in the amount of electrical power for this year has made it central to how drivers race. Timing the electrical boost and recharging is the key to tactical racing. Four-time F1 champion Max Verstappen, who drives for Red Bull, loathes it so much he has questioned his future in this series.
A return to bigger V8 engines would be a nostalgia trip for older drivers and fans, with a distinctive screaming engine noise. They’re relatively rare in modern vehicles outside of expensive sports cars.
Using sustainably-sourced fuel, as F1 does already from this season, would be one concession to environmental goals.
There’s a lot of politics behind the decisions on F1’s future, from the White House to the racing paddock.
Electrical vehicles no longer seem as certain to dominate the roads in key F1 markets as they did when the FIA and teams began drawing up the regulations in the early 2020s.
The Trump administration has put tighter rules on the charger network that electric vehicles depend on, and the European Union is rethinking a planned ban on new internal combustion-powered cars set to start in 2035.
“The political landscape has changed,” the FIA’s top F1 regulations official, Nikolas Tombazis, told reporters last week. “Back when we discussed the current regulations, the automotive companies, who were very involved, told us that they’re never going to make another internal combustion engine again, a new one, that they were going to phase out and by whatever year they were going to be fully electrical. Obviously, this hasn’t happened.”
Ben Sulayem said the FIA would need engine manufacturers’ agreement to push for V8 engines for 2030, ahead of the agreed five-year schedule for the current cars, but would be more free to act without their agreement for 2031.
The F1 world has long appealed to automakers by promising innovation relevant to their road cars, but now the FIA seems less keen for F1 cars to resemble daily drivers. The boom in F1’s popularity around the world over the past decade could give it more leverage.
“We do need to protect the sport from the world macroeconomic situation, meaning we cannot be hostage to automotive companies deciding to be part of our sport or not,” Tombazis said.
“We want them to be a part of our sport, absolutely. That’s why we’ve worked so hard to secure new ones to participate. But we can also not be in this position where if they decide they don’t want to be, we’re simply left vulnerable.”