F1 will enter a new era in 2026 as overhauled cars and power units take to the track. But what about the other major regulation changes the sport has witnessed in years gone by \u2013 and who benefitted from them? F1.com provides an overview\u2026<\/p>\n
1961 \u2013 New engine formula<\/p>\n
Although there had already been several rule changes since the inception of the F1 World Championship in 1950, the 1961 season was revolutionary for the sport, with normally aspirated engine capacity cut from a maximum of 2.5 litres to 1.5l, and a minimum car weight of 450kg introduced.<\/p>\n
\u201cFerrari were the best prepared for the new regulations, given the British teams that had dominated previously felt, wrongly, that their influence would lead to the rule changes being dropped,\u201d wrote Edd Straw in a previous F1.com feature<\/a>, pointing to Cooper\u2019s rear-engined revolution in 1959 and 1960.<\/p>\n Ferrari\u2019s new engine \u2013 based on the 1.5-litre V6 Formula 2 unit used in 1960 but with a raft of modifications \u2013 and their sleek 256 \u2018Sharknose\u2019 chassis dominated the season, winning five out of seven World Championship races, while Phil Hill<\/a> claimed the title after team mate Wolfgang von Trips died in a crash at Monza.<\/p>\n 1983 \u2013 Flat-bottomed cars<\/p>\n In 1977, \u2018ground effect\u2019 well and truly arrived in F1 with the revolutionary Lotus 78<\/a> \u2013 Colin Chapman\u2019s creation mastering the fine art of using the underside of the car to generate negative pressure and suck it towards the track.<\/p>\n However, with rival teams applying their own solutions over the coming seasons, and cornering speeds getting faster and faster, ground effect cars were outlawed from the 1983 campaign in favour of flat-bottom floor regulations.<\/p>\n Given that the final call came in November 1982, any ground-effect cars in the works had to be scrapped, with Brabham\u2019s BT52<\/a> \u2013 powered by a turbocharged BMW engine \u2013 being designed, manufactured and prepared in just six weeks.<\/p>\n The car won on its debut at the Brazilian Grand Prix in the hands of home hero Nelson Piquet<\/a>, who ultimately pipped Alain Prost<\/a> to the Drivers\u2019 Championship by two points with the help of a \u2018B-spec\u2019 mid-season upgrade and some specially formulated fuel.<\/p>\n While Piquet and Prost led the charge for Brabham and Renault respectively, Ferrari also navigated the rule changes well to retain the Teams\u2019 Championship title \u2013 French duo Rene Arnoux and Patrick Tambay consistently scoring podiums and points.<\/p>\n 1989 \u2013 Ban on turbo engines<\/p>\n Renault began an F1 trend when they introduced the sport\u2019s first turbocharged car in 1977. While the RS01<\/a> was extremely unreliable, it eventually showed enough promise to prompt many of their rivals to adopt the technology.<\/p>\n Turbo cars were part of F1 for more than a decade, but growing safety concerns over just how much power they produced, as well as the costs involved, led F1\u2019s governing body, the FIA, to introduce limitations before banning them altogether.<\/p>\n Not that it stopped McLaren and engine partners Honda, who followed up an almost perfect 1988 season (across which they won all bar one race) with another commanding display in 1989 \u2013 defending both their Teams\u2019 and Drivers\u2019 Championship titles.<\/p>\n 1994 \u2013 Ban on driver aids<\/p>\n F1 was an electronic driver aids playground in the early 1990s, with Williams\u2019 FW15C<\/a> the ultimate example by seamlessly combining active suspension, traction control, anti-lock braking and much more to dominate the 1993 season.<\/p>\n All of the above devices were banned for the 1994 campaign, though, while in-race refuelling was permitted for the first time since 1983, forcing teams to go back to their drawing boards and try to find lap time elsewhere.<\/p>\n Benetton and Michael Schumacher<\/a> emerged as title challengers under the new rules, while triple World Champion and new Williams signing Ayrton Senna<\/a> failed to finish the first three races before his fatal accident at the San Marino Grand Prix.<\/p>\n Another round of safety-based car changes were enforced in response to Senna\u2019s death, after which Schumacher \u2013 driving a Benetton that rivals had accused of rule-bending, and overcoming disqualifications and race bans \u2013 beat Williams\u2019 Damon Hill<\/a> to the title via a controversial clash at the season finale.<\/p>\n 1998 \u2013 Narrower cars, grooved tyres<\/p>\n The 1998 season signalled the start of a \u2018narrow track\u2019 era in F1, with car widths reduced from two metres to 1.8m, while grooved tyres were also introduced (three on the front, four on the rear) to get spiralling speeds under control.<\/p>\n Williams became a leading force as the 1990s developed, winning the 1992, 1993, 1994, 1996 and 1997 Teams\u2019 Championships, as well as several Drivers\u2019 crowns, but they lost star designer Adrian Newey<\/a> to McLaren the year before the 1998 reset came into play.<\/p>\n Newey\u2019s design office came up with a brilliant solution to the changes \u2013 the Mercedes-powered MP4-13 securing 12 pole positions, nine victories, 20 podiums and, most importantly, McLaren\u2019s first Drivers\u2019 and Teams\u2019 championships in seven years.<\/p>\n For some in the F1 paddock, there was a clear link to be made.<\/p>\n \u201cAll you can do is look at teams\u2019 performances and try and find the common denominator, and you\u2019d have to say that without him Williams aren\u2019t doing so well, and with him McLaren are doing better than they were last year,\u201d said Newey\u2019s former Williams colleague, Hill<\/a>, early in the campaign.<\/p>\n 2009 \u2013 Aerodynamics overhaul<\/p>\n Just over a decade later, F1 was on the brink of another reset \u2013 one that would flip the formbook on its head and produce the underdog story of all underdog stories.<\/p>\n With an array of winglets making their way onto cars across the noughties, it was decided that almost all aerodynamic devices \u2013 apart from the obvious front and rear wings (albeit to significantly different dimensions) \u2013 would be banned for 2009.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, driver-adjustable front wings were permitted, slick tyres were re-introduced, and teams also had the option to run an all-new KERS (Kinetic Energy Recovery System) that turned energy generated under braking into a limited boost of horsepower.<\/p>\n Step forward Brawn GP, who emerged following Honda\u2019s dramatic exit from F1, struck a deal to put a Mercedes engine in the back of their design \u2013 which had been developed with huge investment from the Japanese manufacturer \u2013 and initially blew away the competition<\/a>.<\/p>\n Aided by a novel \u2018double diffuser\u2019 creation, Ross Brawn<\/a>\u2019s eponymous team sensationally secured both of that year\u2019s world titles, racking up the wins early on \u2013 while the likes of McLaren and Ferrari struggled \u2013 and defending their position when rivals made gains.<\/p>\n 2014 \u2013 Turbo-hybrid power units<\/p>\n One of the biggest engine overhauls in the sport\u2019s history took place in 2014 when teams swapped their 2.4-litre naturally aspirated V8s for the ground-breaking 1.6-litre V6 turbo hybrid power units still used today.<\/p>\n Central to these new units were the MGU-K (Motor Generator Unit Kinetic) for the recovery of kinetic energy under braking, and the MGU-H (Motor Generator Unit Heat) for the recovery of heat energy from exhaust gases, along with a host of other changes<\/a>.<\/p>\n Mercedes, having made plenty of progress since returning to F1 as a factory outfit in 2010, and having ploughed resources into the 2014 project, enjoyed a flying start to the new era<\/a> \u2013 winning 16 out of 19 races and both world titles, with Lewis Hamilton<\/a> crowned the Drivers\u2019 Champion.<\/p>\n It not only ended a spell of Red Bull dominance from 2010 to 2013, when every title went the way of the team and Sebastian Vettel<\/a>, but marked the beginning of a Mercedes winning run that would go down as the longest in F1 history.<\/p>\n 2017 \u2013 Longer, wider and faster cars<\/p>\n In 2017, the aforementioned 1998 reduction in car widths from two metres to 1.8m was effectively reversed, with chassis lengths, front and rear tyre widths, front wing widths and the minimum overall weight also increasing.<\/p>\n Producing more downforce and grip, the new breed of cars broke no fewer than 11 lap records (in Azerbaijan, Monaco, Austria, Great Britain, Belgium, Singapore, Malaysia, Russia, USA, Mexico and Brazil) over the course of the year.<\/p>\n Mercedes remained the team to beat despite how much had changed, with Hamilton winning another Drivers\u2019 title and the Silver Arrows retaining their Teams\u2019 crown, though Ferrari \u2013 and particularly Vettel \u2013 put up a much bigger fight.<\/p>\n 2022 \u2013 Another \u2018ground effect\u2019 era<\/p>\n As touched on earlier, ground effect was banned in 1983, but F1 chiefs decided to bring it back for 2022 in a set of sweeping changes predominantly aimed at reducing \u2018dirty air\u2019<\/a> \u2013 making it easier for cars to follow each other and, in turn, for drivers to pull off overtakes.<\/p>\n The underbody therefore produced the majority of aerodynamic grip, front and rear wing specifications were changed significantly, bigger wheel rims were introduced alongside low-profile Pirelli tyres, bargeboards were scrapped and plenty more<\/a>.<\/p>\n Prior to this change, Mercedes had dominated the turbo-hybrid years, winning all eight Teams\u2019 Championships from 2014, and all bar one Drivers\u2019 title in the same period \u2013 Red Bull\u2019s Max Verstappen<\/a> ending that run in 2021 by edging out Hamilton.<\/p>\n For 2022, however, Honda-powered Red Bull kicked on, with Newey \u2013 one of few current designers who\u2019d experienced those original ground effect days \u2013 overseeing a dominant 2022 challenger, before going even better in 2023 when the team amazingly took 21 out of 22 race wins.<\/p>\n 2026 \u2013 New cars, new power units<\/p>\n For the 2026 season, it\u2019s all change once again. In a nutshell, cars will be shorter, narrower, lighter and nimbler, while ground effect tunnels are being replaced by much flatter floors, meaning less downforce and higher ride heights \u2013 in theory allowing for greater set-up variety.<\/p>\n