Ferrari announce FIA update over 2026 F1 engine row

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F1 News & Gossip

Ferrari announce FIA update over 2026 F1 engine row

Sheona Mountford F1 Journalist

Motorsport journalist working in F1 since 2024.

Sunday 25 January 2026 14:55

A Ferrari F1 chief has revealed there will be an additional meeting with the FIA over the 2026 engine loophole saga.

The FIA met with all manufacturers on Thursday to discuss a potential loophole discovered in the regulations by Mercedes and Red Bull.

Both teams are apparently able to run their engines at a higher compression ratio (18:1) than allowed by the regulations (16:1), able to increase the ratio when the engines are running hot.

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This could give both teams an advantage of 0.3 seconds, which, naturally, has caused alarm from rival power unit manufacturers Audi, Ferrari and Honda.

Thursday's meeting saw the manufacturers and the FIA gather to try and find a method to measure the compression rates at high temperatures. The meeting, however, ended without any way to implement this testing, so for now, Mercedes and Red Bull's power units are legal.

Is this the end of the power unit loophole saga?

The answer to that is, no. The power unit technical director at Ferrari, Enrico Gualtieri, recently confirmed that an additional meeting will take place with the power unit advisory committee.

"We are approaching the topic together with FIA. We are still discussing with them," he said.

"We had a technical meeting yesterday actually, and we are going to have additional one in the next days, up to the PUAC meeting, which is the power unit advisory committee. So we are approaching the topic together with them.

"We are certainly trusting them for managing the topic in the proper way, going through the procedures and the governance that is in place by regulation. And we completely trust that the process comes into an ending in the next days and weeks."

Alongside this, if a new method of testing the compression is to go forward, a format vote in the F1 Commission would be required first.

F1 Ferrari Mercedes FIA 2026 regulations