FIA ability to “fix” F1 questioned after “doing nothing” to prevent problems

Formula 1 teams and the FIA must pull together to “fix” the championship, says commentator Will Buxton, after losing faith that the governing body can sort the early-season problems alone.

While there is always an air of excitement around new regulations, the 2026 changes were anticipated with more concern than anything else, with long-standing concerns over power drop off on straights due to the vastly changed power unit configurations and the removal of the MGU-H.

With drivers and at least a vocal portion of the fanbase on social media highly critical of the opening three races, which saw increased overtaking dubbed as “artificial” by drivers, the F1 Commission is holding a series of meetings in the April break in an attempt to fine-tune things.

However, Buxton has limited expectations of what will change.

Taking aim at the FIA, he said on the Up to Speed podcast, “I question whether the right direction will be taken, whether the FIA has known that this was going to happen for years and did nothing about it.

“The whole regulations were changed to try to appeal to new manufacturers to come in, new OEMs to come in, which they managed to do with Audi. Porsche ultimately said no, Ford came back, Honda came back, brilliant.

“But then they said ‘We want to save money’ and just scrapped the MGU-H, but didn’t bother changing the 50-50 split between electric and the normal engine.

“That’s the biggest crux of the issue right now, is that you are deploying faster than you can harvest. Why did nobody see this? These are supposed to be the smartest brains that are coming up with this, and they’ve got a month now to fix this, so it’s got to be a collaborative effort, because working as they have done for the last couple of years is what has led us down the path to this.”

Buxton added: “That’s your big issue right now, is the people who are going to be determining these changes, didn’t do anything to stop this from happening.”

On Thursday, Crash.net learned that a change has already been made ahead of a return to action in Miami, with the FIA banning engine trickery used by the Mercedes and Red Bull teams in qualifying this term.

Proving he was not alone in his concerns prior to the new era of F1, Buxton said: “I remember back as far as 2023, there were rumblings about how difficult this was going to be, and not just rumblings. Max [Verstappen], in an FIA press conference, went on the record and said ‘The new cars for 2026 look awful. We’re going to haver to be lifting on the straights, downshifting on the straights. There’s going to be a huge disparity between what we understand Formula 1 to be now and what it will become, unless we change path’.

“One year ago, [Ferrari team principal] Fred Vasseur went to the FIA and said ‘Are you sure the regulations are supposed to be like this, because race starts are going to be really difficult’. They didn’t do anything to change it, and so Ferrari turned up with an engine that was really good for the race starts.”