FIA confirm major F1 rule reversal for 2028 season

The FIA have confirmed that they will reverse an unpopular rule change after just one year, starting in 2028.

F1 grands prix currently have a minimum distance of 305km (with the exception of Monaco, at 260km), but that will be reduced by about 5 per cent to 290km for the upcoming 2027 season, and the 2027 season only.

The reason given for the change is that the changes being made to power production for next season - moving from a near 50/50 split between combustion unit power and electrical power in 2026 to closer to a 60/40 split - will mean that the cars burn more fuel over a race distance.

As the new generation of cars were designed with that 50/50 split in mind, installing bigger fuel tanks to accommodate the extra fuel required would force a fundamental redesign of most of the cars on the grid. And it would cost a lot of money.

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F1 revert controversial change after one year

However, the newly-published 2027 F1 regulations contain a key detail near the end, in a section titled 'Changes for 2028', which confirms that race distances will be back up to 305km after just one year of shortened grands prix.

The section in question reads: "The distance of the Race, from the start signal referred to in Article B5.7.2 to the end-of-session signal referred to in Article B5.16.1, shall be equal to the least number of complete laps which exceed a distance of 305km, with the exception of the two following circumstances:

• If the formation lap(s) is started behind the Safety Car (Article B5.10) the number of Race laps will be reduced by the number of laps carried out by the Safety Car minus one.
• The distance of the Race in Monaco shall be equal to the least number of complete laps which exceed a distance of 260km."

Hamilton: Shortening races makes no sense

The news will be music to the ears of seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton, who criticised the original decision to take 15km off races when it was first announced.

“I don't really know anything about it or any of the reasons they put it up behind it," the Brit he said at the time.

“I think the races should be longer because the races are physically easier than ever before.

“So shortening, I don't think, makes much sense. If you think about this weekend, we have the C3, 4, 5 [tyre compounds] that can pretty much all do the race distance. So we have a lot of races where it's only a one stop. It's not particularly challenging.

“There it is challenging, but they're making tyres that just seem to go longer. So for me, there's been many races where I wish we had more laps. So it's the opposite that I would be asking for [which] is longer races, to be honest.”

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