“We may need to make adjustments,” admits Tombazis

As Stefano Domenicali urges “don’t panic” following a less than favourable reaction to the new formula, FIA single-seater director, Nikolas Tombazis admits that changes may be needed.

“The chef can drive them”, “it’s Formula E on steroids”, were just two of the reactions as drivers finally got to stretch the legs of the 2026 cars.

However, over the last few weeks, various issues have been raised, including safety, the inability to overtake, the fact that racing will take a back seat to energy management and lots, lots more.

OK, nobody likes change, and there was bound to be some initial criticism, with some were openly damning of the revised formula before even sitting in the cars.

However, the fact that the criticism has been so wide-ranging and come not just from drivers but team bosses, causing Domenicali to utter the “don’t panic” cry, suggests that there is reason to worry, and the FIA is ready to react.

“The cars are new,” explains Tombazis. “Last summer and last autumn, a lot of people were driving the simulators and expressing huge concerns,” he continues. “I think the comments in Barcelona and in Bahrain are certainly much better than what people said based on the simulator. But there are still some comments, like what Max said.

“We are completely conscious that we may need to make adjustments,” he admits. “That has been a discussion we’ve been open about with the teams and the PU manufacturers for a long, long time. And with the drivers. So I think there are some ways that we can act as a sport to make adjustments in the rules.”

Asked if there is a particular aspect of the rules that needs revisiting, he replies: “Potentially some of the rules to do with energy deployment.”

“There wouldn’t be any need for any change of your system,” he insists. “It would be more how you run your system. Clearly, if you go to a power unit engineer, they would say, ‘Well, that changes a bit the duty cycle. And if I had known it, I would have maybe done this slightly different’ or whatever.

“We think we are not in a bad place where we are now,” he adds. “But if there needs to be some adjustments following these comments, we will discuss them all collectively as a sport and do what’s needed.

“If you take the comments that have been made in November or October or last summer, I think we are way, way better now. We’ve addressed a lot of the concerns. Have we addressed every single concern? No. I think there are some topics that are still open,” he admits.

“Of course, it is very easy to say, yes, if the ICE was much bigger and the ERS was much smaller, there would be fewer of these problems, and that is true.

“We’ve known right from 2022 that the 50-50 power solution has challenges,” he continues. “It’s not new or a surprise. We’ve done a huge amount of work to work on how this energy is deployed. And I think we’ve done, in my view, 90% of the work to get to a reasonable place. There may be some adjustments as we’ve learned about the cars, and we are fully open to do that.”

Of course, the first race is just a week away, followed by a Sprint in China. So when exactly could these changes be implemented?

“We are learning as we go along,” he says. “And the first real test will be the first race, because here (in testing) they’re not really racing each other. These changes do need a bit of discussion. There may be a few weeks of discussion, and we also need to go through the governance process. So, it’s unlikely to be something between Australia and China, for example, but it’s also not months and months.

“We’ll take the decision for the best of the sport,” he adds. “This is a marathon, not a sprint. I definitely hope that Australia will be exciting. But I don’t think Australia is the… We have five years to go through, and we have very clear tools on how to act on things. We will see where we stand. And, as I say, discuss them openly and transparently, and do our best.”