Formula 1Edd Straw
24 Mar 2026 — 2 min read
Formula 1 has been preoccupied with the negative effect of downforce loss while following in another car’s dirty air for 20 years. Vast amounts of energy have been expended analysing and attempting to mitigate this through aerodynamic regulations, yet it has accidentally stumbled upon the fix among the myriad unintended consequences of the 2026 regulations.
Set aside arguments about the nature of the overtaking and wheel-to-wheel racing and whether this is an acceptable trade for now. Instead, focus on the irony that F1 has inadvertently crashed into the reality that this aerodynamic problem could never be solved exclusively by aerodynamic means, given the stubbornness of the laws of physics. A fast racing car moving through the air at high speed will always create a wake, and for F1 cars to be as fast as they need to be, you need downforce.
Mercedes technical director James Allison pointed in this direction in 2024 when he described "the whole idea of controlling wakes" as "being something of a tilting-at-windmill type of challenge". But this year, the massive power offsets created by the power unit regulations have so far overpowered the wake problem and allowed cars to stay together and battle.
The sample set of two grand prix weekends is insufficient to draw definitive conclusions about how the racing will play out in the long-term, most likely, the extremes of racing we saw in both Australia and China will not be the norm. That there were parts of the midfield that became processional supports that. But the principle, that a sufficiently large enough power offset can comfortably overpower any loss of downforce when following, even if the racing does calm down, stands..
This isn’t an argument in favour of these power units specifically, merely that what we’ve seen so far this year points the way. Yes, the aerodynamic effect is still there and it’s worth continuing to mitigate the turbulence where possible, just as improvements to the tyres must also play a part. But whatever F1’s longer-term regulatory future, using power offsets to smash through the turbulence must be a key part of the solution.
Exactly how to best harness that as part of F1 that transcends rule sets for the long term without skewing the game or falling foul of accusations of racing being ‘artificial’ is another question. Ideally, it should not be a DRS-style mechanism that gives the following car an advantage and nothing for the one ahead to counter with. Currently, both cars in a battle have similar harvesting and deployment potential around a given lap even if there are massive power offsets at any given moment.
An IndyCar-style push-to-pass is too limited for F1, but a more powerful and complex system that plays on that concept could conceivably be created if there’s a future where the current big power differences aren’t part of the power unit regulations.
Exactly what numbers and conditions should be used is not yet clear, but knowledge gleaned from the races to come under these rules will provide invaluable data for framing the answer. F1 has time to consider these case studies and potentially formulate an approach that creates a mechanism to solve the problem for good
Regardless of your position on these rules and the racing they produce, the lesson that you must overpower the dirty power problem is one that F1 must learn and integrate into all future rules packages.