Admitting that the FIA was aware of the problem in 2022 (!), the FIA's single seater director, Nikolas Tombazis blames the manufacturers for the issues with the new formula.
Despite the best efforts of those involved to insist that everything is rosy, the fact is that many people are still unhappy with the 2026 rules overhaul, especially the drivers.
The new fans are happy, but diehards continue to insist that F1 2026, with its energy management, AI lottery and the consequent reliability issues are destroying their sport.
Max Verstappen warned of the issues the sport faced in 2023, three years before the new formula took to the track, but Tombazis admits that it was clear there was a problem as early as 2022.
"As simulations came in back in 2022 or so, we knew there were these issues," he admits, "but we were a bit too far down the line there to change things and some people had committed too much resource. So, that left us slightly on the back foot at the start of the season, discussing that.
"Drivers are, by definition, quite demanding clients," he continued. "So I don't think we expect them to have a sugar coat or to not speak their mind. We did anticipate a lot of these things they complained about in the two years before the launch of the season, and we did try to make some adjustments. But we failed with the governance that was in place. So I think it was realistically only to be expected."
Once the season got underway and it became clear that there was a problem, the sport finally realised that changes had to be made, and consequently the much-loathed 50/50 power split will be adjusted over the next couple of seasons, though Tombazis admits that the 60/40 split planned for 2028 should have been introduced earlier.
"I think it's a bit of a shame that we had to wait until we discussed things in May and get to a package for 2027 and for 2028," he admits. "I think we could have ideally done that a couple of years before and then there wouldn't have been all of this discussion."
However, as for the cause of the unhappiness, Tombazis places the blame firmly at the door of the manufacturers.
The sport, aware that it faced the potential situation of there being just two or three manufacturers, needed more OEMs, and the promised push towards electrification made F1 more attractive to the likes of Audi and Honda.
As new manufacturers committed, a Power Unit Advisory Committee was formed with the intention of balancing the interests of both the newcomers and those already participating.
"When OEMs decide to participate as PU manufacturers, they sign a governance agreement that is binding towards all parties, so the FIA, FOM and the PU manufacturers," Tombazis explains. "It's similar to what the Concorde Agreement does for the team side of things.
"And there was a separate governance agreement signed in 2022 in order to basically outline the requirements for the PU manufacturers during the years 2023, 2024 and 2025," he continued. "That is before the championship started because there's such things like financial regulations for the first time.
"If a PU manufacturer who was not participating in F1, let's say Audi for example, they still had to be bound by regulations. They could not come to us and say, 'well, you know we're not participating, hence we can spend five times the money', for example. That would have been unfair.
"So that's why there was a governance agreement that, on the one hand, forced them to be bound by the regulations, including the financial and operational, and all of that. But on the other hand, it puts limitations as to how much we can change things unilaterally as the FIA.
"Therefore any change had to be approved by a significant number of the PU manufacturers, and so for the sort of changes we did, we needed at least four of them to agree. Quite simply, four of them did not agree during the years when we discussed adjustments."
The situation was further complicated by the fact that, at that time, the manufacturers, with an eye on their road cars, were looking at increased electrification of the sport.
"It was always a challenging target to have a close to 50:50 power split between the two units," Tombazis admits. "But that was a very important position for the OEMs participating, and frankly having to decide whether they want to be in Formula 1 or not. Don't forget that if we didn't have them in, we would have just two power units in Formula 1, which I think would have been a bit of an issue. So, that requirement to have a much stronger electrical part did create these difficulties."
Despite everything, Tombazis tows the party line...
"Most races have been pretty exciting, I would say," he insists. "There's been quite a lot of fighting.
"While we do have a clear advantage for one manufacturer, in the past when we've had this at an early start of regulations it has been very processional," he adds. And now I think, despite the fact Mercedes has been doing most of the winning, the races have nonetheless been quite exciting, with quite a lot of changes and so on.
"So we need to look at the balance of things. Clearly, drivers are important stakeholders in the sport. So, therefore, I think we've done the right thing by listening to them a lot and taking actions. But I think we also need to think about the spectators as well, and that they want to see changes and exciting races and so on."
Of course, that depends on whether he's referring to Stefano Domenicali's beloved new demographic or the mugs who have stuck with the sport through thick and thin.
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