FIA Bans F1 Teams' Qualifying Power Tactic

The International Automobile Federation (FIA) has issued a technical directive prohibiting Mercedes and Red Bull from using a qualifying tactic that allowed their Formula 1 teams to extract a brief burst of extra power at the end of laps, following complaints from rivals over safety and fairness.

The move targets a loophole in the 2026 power unit regulations, which require drivers to gradually reduce electrical energy deployment by 50 kilowatts per second as batteries approach depletion. This ramp-down prevents sudden decelerations that could lead to collisions. However, Mercedes and Red Bull-powered cars, including those from Williams, exploited an emergency feature by shutting down the motor generator unit kinetic (MGUK), which recovers braking energy. This override enabled teams to maintain full 350-kilowatt deployment longer, dumping remaining battery power just before the timing line and gaining an advantage of 50 to 100 kilowatts over competitors.

The tactic, first observed by rivals during the season-opening Australian Grand Prix in March, provided only marginal lap time improvements, often mere thousandths or hundredths of a second. Yet in a series where pole positions...