Formula 1 CEO Stefano Domenicali believes the series' new engine regulations for 2026 could be the last which require hybrid power units.
Domenicali believes the arrival of ‘sustainable’ fuels in 2026 will allow F1 to do away with hybrids and shift back to using conventional combustion engines in the future.
Because it's more of a buzzword than a goal. Carbon neutral, in theory, means a company reduces their carbon output where they can and then reimburse the rest of the carbon they can't reduce. In practice it means a company can literally do nothing to reduce their emissions, pay someone else to offset the carbon they refuse to reduce and then claim "we're carbon neutral" while polluting with the same rate as they were before. Carbon neutral simply does not go far enough.
How much of this is to avoid stepping on the toes of Formula E? (I know people mention some kind of exclusivity arrangement but I've never seen the actual facts on that)
I'd also be interested to know how polluting these sustainable replacements for petrol are, I feel if they were a miracle fuel we'd already know about it!
I'm not fine with 2026's removal of the MGU-H, which just gives us what we have now only more compromised. The MGU-H is probably the most fascinating aspect of current F1 engines.
Maybe their (and our) 25-year run of pretending that gasoline-electric hybrids were an adequate way to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions is finally nearing its end.