Binotto: Quick adapters will rule F1 in 2026, not the fastest starters

Audi F1 chief Mattia Binotto says next year’s sweeping rules overhaul in Formula 1 will reward whichever team can think – and react – the quickest, marking 2026 as a season where adaptability may trump outright early pace.

Speaking at Audi’s identity launch last week in Munich, where the German manufacturer formally unveiled its takeover of Sauber, Binotto painted a picture of an F1 landscape set for upheaval on both the engine and chassis fronts.

With the sport bracing for radical shifts – from near 50-50 hybrid power splits to slightly smaller cars equipped with active aero – Binotto believes early form will not be a reliable indicator of ultimate success.

“I don't think we can judge who will be the best team by the start of next season,” he said. “It's more how the team will be capable of reacting later.

“Because whatever will be the level of competition and the level of performance of each single team, for me, the best team will be the ones that are capable of reacting quickly, and developing quickly.”

The message is clear: 2026 will reward teams that learn on the fly.

With huge unknowns attached to both the aerodynamic package and the new power unit architecture, even the outfits that roll out dominant-looking cars in pre-season testing may find themselves clawed back rapidly by rivals who are sharper at interpreting data and churning out upgrades.

Completely New Playbooks

Binotto, who as Ferrari’s former team principal steered the Scuderia through its own regulation upheavals, warned that the scale of change for 2026 is unprecedented.

“There will be a significant change as well on the aero and on the vehicle side,” he explained. “So, it's combining two effects, both the power unit and the chassis and the aero.“

“We believe that the parameters, or the variables that before were important for performance, may be different tomorrow. So, we believe that with the new regulations, what counted before to go fast could be different.“

“So, it means that as well, all the tools that were back in the factory, the simulations that were fine-tuned for the current regulations, need to be completely reviewed for the next one, because it's not the same parameters that will have the same level of importance.“

“I think that change is something which we are not used to. And it may be that at the start of next season, some of the teams would have done it properly, some others not, because the tools are not yet properly tuned.”

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In plain speak: wind tunnels, CFD programmes, and dynos that have been honed to perfection over years of the current rules risk becoming blunt instruments overnight.

The teams whose virtual worlds most accurately mirror the radical new reality will unlock development rates their rivals can only dream of.

For Audi – arriving as a full works effort after years of preparation at Hinwil and Neuburg – Binotto’s words sound like a statement of intent.

While Red Bull, Ferrari, Mercedes and McLaren juggle the final throes of the current era, the other silverarrows squad has had the luxury of focusing almost exclusively on 2026 correlation from day one.

As the countdown to one of the biggest regulation resets in F1 history accelerates, Binotto has fired the starting gun on a whole new kind of arms race: not just who builds the fastest car, but who learns fastest when the rulebook is ripped up.

In 2026, the sharpest minds – not necessarily the usual suspects – could end up painting the championship red… or perhaps Audi silver.

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