Symonds slams F1’s 2026 power unit: ‘We ended up with a camel’

Formula 1’s upcoming 2026 power units have drawn a colorful critique from Pat Symonds, one of the sport’s most respected technical minds.

Formula 1’s former technical director, who has since joined Cadillac’s fledgling F1 project as an executive consultant, was one of the chief architects of Grand Prix racing’s 2022 ground-effect chassis regulations.

But the Briton admits he’s no fan of the sport’s next-generation engine platform that will be ushered in this year, describing the new power unit as “a camel”, born out of committee decisions rather than bold engineering.

Symonds has revealed that his departure from Formula One Management was fueled, in part, by the FIA’s tightening grip on technical rules – a shift he believes that compromised the purity of the next generation of power units.

“It was a little bit of the frustration that Formula One Management were getting less and less involved in the regulations, very much the FIA and things like the ’26 power unit was not what I wanted it to be,” he told Autocar.

Compromise Over Innovation

The former F1 veteran believes the FIA made too many concessions to the teams when shaping the 2026 rules, diluting what could have been a revolutionary power unit.

“When we did the 2022 car we listened to what the teams were saying, but we ruled them with a firm hand,” Symonds explained. “We said, ‘okay, we’re listening to you, but we’re actually going to do this’. So we took some of their input.

“We knew that each one of them had an agenda. This is the advantage of [me] spending so many years as a competitor. So we were quite rigid in what we wanted.”

Symonds lamented that the 2026 engine fell short of his vision, particularly after the FIA rejected a proposal to generate energy from the front axle – a solution that could have offset the loss of the complex MGU-H element and boosted electrification.

“With the ’26 power unit, the FIA said it wanted to involve the manufacturers more. Unfortunately, I think it’s like when you get a committee to design a racehorse, you end up with a camel,” he said.

A Power Unit 'Sparse on Energy'

The result of this committee-led design is a power unit that Symonds fears will struggle for electrical stamina. The rejection of front-axle energy recovery, he says, was down to a misunderstanding of the technology and the veto of a single team.

“I think that’s happened a little bit, because one of the briefs for the ’26 engine was to remove the MGU-H, because that was something that certainly improved the efficiency of the engines massively, but it was quite complex," the Briton noted.

"It was decided to remove that really to try and encourage new manufacturers into the sport, which in some way was successful. Ford came in, Audi came in we’ve got Cadillac come in. Porsche almost came in, they sort of faltered at the last minute.

“But once you remove that energy source, if you keep everything else similar, we’ve increased the power of the motors and things, the idea was to replace it with recovering energy from the front axle.

“If you did that, everything balanced out quite nicely, you weren’t short of energy, you could have a lot more electrification on the car."

The roadblock came from the governing level and team-led objections.

“But unfortunately, because of this committee approach to things, one team was very much against front axle recovery.

“I think the president of the FIA at the time, Jean Todt, thought we were talking about four-wheel-drive, which we weren’t, we were talking about energy recovery. Maybe drive once you’re on the straight but certainly not in the corners, so not a four-wheel-drive, classic, car.

• Read also: Gary Anderson fears F1’s 2026 rules may destroy years of progress

“So, because of this sort of very democratic approach, one of the times when democracy is not good, we ended up with this camel. We’ve ended up with a power unit that’s sparse on energy.

“Okay, there are ways around it, but they’re not good ways around it."

Despite his scathing review of the engines, Symonds remains optimistic about the physical cars themselves.

“So I wouldn’t say that the ’26 power units ended up the way I wanted. [But] the chassis, the aerodynamics, I think they’re pretty good, the active aero is a good step forward, I think,” he acknowleged.

Keep up to date with all the F1 news via X and Facebook