The FIA’s single-seater director, Nikolas Tombazis appears to play down the impact of regulations “refinements”.
While fans, and most likely drivers, try to make sense of the “refinements”, as the sport becomes ever more technical, relying on the input of the engineers and boffins, as opposed to those at the actual wheel, Tombazis has defended the changes while admitting that they are not the ‘revolution’, turnaround even, that many had hoped for.
“Fans have, by and large, been enjoying the new regulations,” he claims in an FIA video, “because they’ve brought closer racing and I think first and foremost we expect that to continue.
“We think that will be continuing,” he adds, “and clearly as the regulations become more mature we expect some teams who are currently lagging behind to gradually catch up and have closer and closer racing as time goes by and as the months and years go by. So that we expect to stay.
“Regarding what we see at the track, these changes are not revolutionary,” he admits. “They’re not going to fundamentally change the picture that you see. Qualifying will be more flat-out for the drivers. Maybe you will perceive that as you see in the camera shots from within the cockpit and you hear the tone of the power unit, for example, that’s maybe one thing you’re going to see.”
Like, FIA president, Mohammed ben Sulayem, Tombazis insists that the drivers, almost all of whom have been critical of the regulations, were heavily involved in discussions over the “refinements” and support the changes.
“The position of the drivers was quite uniform,” he says. “They were all pushing for some changes in qualifying in order to, let’s say, enjoy more the driving, push more, but also they were pushing for us to address certain safety concerns they had, so they were quite united and their input in this was very important.”
Appearing to dismiss speculation that F1, and its owners, have been calling the shots, determined that the 50/50 formula is the way forward, he says: “We, of course, have a very established process whereby the FIA together with the teams or the manufacturers discuss these changes in various meetings and discuss how to improve everything, how to improve the sport. Clearly when the regulations are new, like we have in 2026, that’s a slightly more intense process of discussion than maybe when the regulations had a few years of maturity.
“There’s a government process to approve regulations,” he continues. “The FIA cannot unilaterally change regulations. They need to have a vote involving either the Formula 1 teams or the power unit manufacturers who – let’s not forget – spend millions and millions in the sport and therefore have a right to have a word.”
Finally, for those still fearing that the safety aspects have not been addressed, he says: “Safety is something we can’t compromise. Safety is something that, through the governance, the FIA has the right or even the responsibility to act even unilaterally.
“So any safety measures we of course discuss with everybody in order to hear the good views of very experienced people but ultimately we, FIA, can decide to take safety measures if we feel that’s important.”