The uncomfortable reality beneath Ben Sulayem's V8 engine promise

The current Formula 1 power unit regulations were largely finalised in 2022, and manufacturers began committing resource almost immediately.

Audi built an entire Formula 1 programme around them. Honda, which had walked away from the sport in 2021 citing complexity and cost, officially came back specifically because the new formula offered a technical challenge it wanted to take on. Ford returned to grand prix racing for the first time in decades on the strength of a partnership with Red Bull predicated on those same rules.

Four races into the new era, the FIA president stood in the Miami paddock and told journalists that Formula 1 will switch to V8 engines by 2031 at the latest, with or without manufacturer approval.

“It is coming,” Mohammed Ben Sulayem said. “In 2031 it’s done anyway. It will be done.”

For fans of nostalgia, as well as the critics of the current rules, the story sounds like a straightforward piece of good news: loud, high-revving engines are coming back; F1 is listening to its fans.

In isolation, there is something to that, but the story of how Formula 1 arrived at this moment — barely two months into a new era it spent years and huge sums of money constructing — is rather more uncomfortable.

The cost of getting here

The 2026 regulations were not arrived at quickly or cheaply.

The power unit framework — a roughly 50/50 split between internal combustion and electrical power, with a simplified MGU-K to power, and recover energy from, the rear axle and the removal of the MGU-H, connected to the turbocharger — was the result of years of negotiation between the FIA, the commercial rights holder, and manufacturers who had very specific conditions for their continued participation.

The conditions were not unreasonable. The manufacturers wanted a formula that was relevant to their road car programmes. They wanted cost controls. They wanted enough lead time to develop competitive power units from a standing start.

All of that was agreed. Audi signed up. Honda reversed its exit. Ford came in. And then, before a single race had been run under the new regulations, the cracks began to show.

The opening races of the 2026 season exposed problems that the regulations’ architects had not fully anticipated, or had anticipated and not fully resolved.

Drivers were managing energy recharge in ways that produced a category of racing that felt artificial to observers. Safety concerns were raised. The rules were tweaked before Miami.

And now, even as the paddock processes those adjustments, the conversation has suddenly moved four years further forward.

The pattern

This is not, it should be said, the first time Formula 1 has done this. The 1.6-litre V6 hybrid formula introduced in 2014 was itself controversial from the moment it was announced: too quiet, too complex, too road-car.

It took years of lobbying and a sustained public pressure campaign before the commercial rights holder and FIA were willing to move significantly.

When the 2026 regulations were finally unveiled as the response, they were presented as a genuine compromise: simpler, louder, still relevant to the automotive industry.

That compromise appears to have lasted four races.

The underlying dynamic is not really about engine configurations. It is about the structural impossibility of building a technical regulation that satisfies everybody: manufacturers with road-car relevance requirements, a governing body with a mandate to control costs and maintain competition, a commercial rights holder whose primary obligation is to the entertainment product, and a fanbase with strong aesthetic preferences.

Those interests are very often not aligned. In many cases, they are directly opposed.

The regulation-making process papers over those conflicts rather than resolving them, which is why they keep resurfacing.

What the enthusiasm for V8s really means

Toto Wolff’s response to Ben Sulayem’s V8 proposal is worth highlighting.

Mercedes spent the hybrid era as the sport’s dominant force. Eight consecutive constructors’ titles, and a power unit programme that gave it leverage over four customer teams.

Wolff, speaking after his team’s fourth consecutive victory of 2026 in Miami, was warmly supportive of pulling down the formula his team had helped make its own.

“We love V8s,” he said. “That has only great memories. From our perspective it’s a pure Mercedes engine, it revs high.”

Wolff, however, was also careful to note that a purely combustion engine would leave Formula 1 looking, as he put it, “a bit ridiculous” by the time 2031 arrives.

However, his proposed alternative — 800bhp from the internal combustion engine with 400bhp of electrical power layered on top — is a very different proposition to the “very, very minor electrification” Ben Sulayem described.

That gap between their visions sounds significant, even four years before the theoretical reset is supposed to happen.

Ford’s Mark Rushbrook was similarly direct about wanting V8s. So was GM president Mark Reuss, who declared his love of the configuration and the sound it makes, while adding a carefully worded rider about being “very respectful” of the investment that had already gone into the V6 hybrids, and noting that Cadillac would simply be ready whenever the switch came.

It is a telling formulation. Ford and General Motors are the newest arrivals at a table whose costs were set before they sat down. Their enthusiasm for tearing up the current rulebook is understandable. Unlike Mercedes, Ferrari, Honda and Audi, they haven’t had to absorb years of hybrid development expenditure. A V8 reset could suit them almost perfectly.

Audi hasn’t yet spoken about Ben Sulayem’s latest comments, but the German manufacturer joined Formula 1 specifically because the 2026 power unit formula was the kind of engineering challenge it wanted to take on.

A switch to V8s by 2031 — at least under Ben Sulayem’s current vision — would mean that the regulatory rationale for Audi’s entire project is rendered obsolete.

The question nobody is asking

The V8 plan may be good for Formula 1. Simpler, louder, cheaper power units, with some meaningful level of electrification, might produce a better spectacle and a healthier manufacturer landscape.