Spring Is Truly Here: Formula 1 Teams Are Slapfighting Over Regulations Compliance

Some will say that the best part of a Formula 1 regulations overhaul is that the start of the next season, not unlike the spring that soon follows, will herald new hope for a better year. The truth is that the best part of a Formula 1 regulations overhaul is the inevitable rules disputes, petty politicking, and snitchery that follows, often helpfully litigated through the media. Take, say, George Russell, before the Chinese Grand Prix, who was sure to lodge his complaints about the current race start procedure prior to the weekend. "Unfortunately," Russell said, "sometimes when you're trying to make changes for the good of the sport, if a team has a competitive edge—like Ferrari at the moment with the race starts—they wouldn't wish to see anything changing." Public opinion has historically been a little unfair to Russell's media statements, as he is not necessarily more of a complainer than any other F1 driver, but is simply cursed with the tone and mien of a schoolboy tattling to the headmaster. Not helping matters is his position as a Mercedes driver, where he forms a united front with his team principal and fellow Tier One rules advocate (read: complainer) Toto Wolff. Which is to say that race starts, and Ferrari's lack of interest in modifying the regulations, were furiously discussed ages before Russell's complaints in China. To start at the start for race starts, we naturally have to start at the new engine regulations. The biggest impact on race starts has been the removal of the MGU-H, which stored energy from the engine's exhaust gases and powered the car's turbocharger on demand; once the turbo was spun up sufficiently, it would give the engine more power. Because the MGU-H was expensive, heavy, and complicated for new manufacturers like Audi, it was removed this year, meaning the turbo can only be charged by the exhaust gasses produce by the running engine. The issue with race starts in 2026 is that each step of that process—the engine producing exhaust, the turbo charging, the engine receiving additional power from the turbo—takes time, resulting in a delay between when a driver demands power and when that power arrives, known as turbo lag. (A very helpful visualization of this process can be found in Chain Bear's explainer video.)