Formula 1 power unit manufacturers and the FIA have gathered for talks over future engine regulations and ways to avoid a repeat of Mercedes' 2014 dominance.
F1's manufacturers held a meeting on Friday morning in Bahrain for exploratory talks over future engine rules and concerns over the 2026 hybrid formula that is nearing introduction.
The meeting, hosted by FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem who first put the idea of returning to V10 engines on the table, was conceived as an exploratory roundtable discussion to understand the position of each 2026 manufacturer, which also included Cadillac.
Among others, the meeting was attended by Audi chief Gernot Dollner, while Honda's HRC president Koji Watanabe flew over for the occasion from Japan. Mercedes CEO Ola Kallenius joined remotely from Stuttgart.
As anticipated both Audi and Honda voiced their opposition to curtailing the very 2026 hybrid rules that had enticed them to sign up in the first place. The likelihood of an early change of power unit regulations appears remote, with talks over introducing V10 engines cooled for now until the next gathering.
"It was a very cordial, productive meeting with the FIA president asking for feedback about what the next generation of engine should look like," Red Bull team boss Christian Horner told Sky Sports F1, as his teams gear up to introduce in-house power units backed by Ford.
"Obviously 2026 is absolutely fixed, but thinking a little further down the line, what is the right trajectory for Formula 1? 2028 is pretty much impossible.
"I think it's a fact-finding mission at the moment. It's now down to the power unit manufacturers to feed back to the FIA. They're gaining all their information and then it'll progress from there."
While changing engine formulas before the currently agreed end date of 2031 is not entirely impossible, it would need majority backing by four out of the current six engine manufacturers, support which isn't in place yet.
Speeding up engine convergence
Horner did acknowledge that as part of the discussions in Bahrain the manufacturers explored mechanisms to avoid a repeat of 2014, when the grid was blown wide open as Mercedes power units proved dominant.
Options could include giving manufacturers more leeway to improve their designs in-season rather than having to homologate and freeze them, but those discussions have not been finalised yet.
"When you get a big regulation change, there is performance divergence and that is almost certain to happen next year," Horner added. "One of the topics on the agenda this morning was, how quickly can there be convergence? We have a budget cap. Perhaps the engines don't need homologating, perhaps you're able to upgrade your engines under that budget cap to encourage convergence as quickly as possible.
"I think we all want to have close-quarters racing, not a repeat of what we had in 2014. It's about having that ability – particularly for the newcomers – to be able to catch up."
