Explaining the 2026 engine loophole controversy
The Race F1 Podcast
The Race Media Ltd
4.5 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 22 December 2025
⏱️ 33 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It’s not even 2026 yet but the first controversy of the new regulations has already erupted, as we discuss in the latest edition of The Race F1 Podcast. Jon Noble joins Edd Straw to explain what Mercedes and Red Bull are understood to be achieving in terms of the compression ratio of their V6 and how its rivals to react to it.
We explain what we know about the benefit in terms of power and efficiency, and why rivals are questioning it. We also look into what the FIA might do about it in either the short or the long term, and how the politics of the situation might play into it. Finally, we ask if it’s a problem given pushing the limits of the regulations has always been what motorsport is about.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Athletic |
| 0:02.7 | The Race is on, and 2020s hasn't even started yet, |
| 0:15.7 | and the first technical controversy is already rumbling along with the emergence of a grey area surrounding the compression |
| 0:21.2 | ratio limit. But is it legal and could there be a tightening up of the rules to prevent it |
| 0:25.5 | happening? I'm Ed's draw and joining me to reveal all is John Noble. Well John, it started early. |
| 0:32.9 | This is all about what the rules say on the acceptable compression ratio, how it will be measured, |
| 0:39.7 | and what two manufacturers in particular are doing. So, what is going on? |
| 0:46.4 | Yeah, this relates to a kind of a new limitation with these 26 regulations that they'd move |
| 0:51.3 | the compression ratio down to 16. 16 over 1 is the official |
| 0:56.3 | terminology we all know it at in the regulations it's written as 16.0. Previously it was 18 and |
| 1:01.6 | it had never become a talking point at all before. The way it was measured was all clarified. |
| 1:06.9 | Teams hadn't been pushing the envelope. It was moved down to 16 as a means of helping new entrants come in because it's much easier to hit the 16 level than be up at 18 where you get problems with knocking and premature compression. |
| 1:20.0 | But it's opened up a bit of a can of worms in terms of interpretation and policing, how it's checked, when it's checked, what happens between when the |
| 1:30.0 | car's cold and it passes the measurement, what happens when it's hot? And the basic premise of |
| 1:35.5 | what's a very complicated story is that the cars are passing, can pass the checks when |
| 1:41.6 | stationary, when cold. They fulfil this 16 criteria. But through some clever |
| 1:47.0 | design concept that we don't know what's happening, whether it's thermal expansion, whether it's |
| 1:50.6 | the use of specific components that maneuver, whether it's phase changing technology, any of this |
| 1:56.3 | element, nobody is sure. But that compression ratio changes. It gets pushed up towards somewhere between 16 and 18. |
| 2:04.3 | We don't know if it's 18. It's 17. It's 16.5, but it goes up and the gains are significant. |
| 2:10.2 | I was told, a source told me that their analysis shows that if you get a compression ratio compared to 16, if it's running 18, that's worth 10 kilowatts. |
| 2:18.9 | It's about 13 horsepower. But that works out 0.3, 0.4 seconds per lap. That's massive in Formula |
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