Most of the F1 grid wanted to rip up the 2026 engine balance in a single move. One of the sport’s newest manufacturers made sure that did not happen.

The headline from Wednesday’s agreement was simple enough: F1 is shifting power back toward the combustion engine. The more telling detail is how slowly it chose to do it, and who pushed for the brakes.

Rather than jumping straight to the new 60/40 balance between combustion and electrical power, the sport settled on a phased route, moving to 58/42 in 2027 before completing the change in 2028. That staging was not an accident. Most manufacturers wanted to reach the new split quickly, but Audi is understood to have resisted such a rapid change, arguing it would be expensive and time-consuming, and proposed a smaller step in 2027 before fully committing the following year.

The objection makes sense coming from Audi. The German marque entered F1 as a full works engine manufacturer for the 2026 regulations, attracted by a formula built around heavy electrification and sustainable fuel. Tearing up a core assumption of that formula a few months after arriving, and rebuilding hardware against the clock, would land hardest on the newest team in the room. A smaller step in 2027 buys breathing space, and the full move in 2028 gives everyone a clear target.

In concrete terms, the first stage lifts fuel flow by five percent in 2027 and raises maximum combustion output from 400kW to 420kW, while the electric motor’s peak falls from 350kW to 300kW. The second stage pushes the balance the rest of the way to 60/40 in 2028. Spreading those steps apart matters most to the people building the engines, who face real hardware consequences from every adjustment.

That tension sat underneath an otherwise united front. The loudest voices, Max Verstappen prominent among them, had been pressing for more combustion power and a return to proper racing rather than energy management. Their complaint centred on lift and coasting (lifting off the throttle early and rolling through corners to manage and recover energy), which drivers felt forced an unnatural driving style and turned qualifying laps into exercises in saving rather than attack.

Audi’s position did not block that change so much as shape its timing. By splitting the move across two seasons, the FIA gave the manufacturers who wanted speed most of what they asked for while handing the one most exposed to cost the time it needed. Supporting measures touching the financial regulations, the sport’s cost cap framework, were folded into the same package to stop the redesign turning into a spending race. The other engine makers ultimately backed the compromise rather than force a split they would all have to live with.

There is a competitive edge to the argument too. A manufacturer confident in its 2026 engine would have less reason to delay; one still chasing performance has every reason to avoid a moving target. Audi’s preference for a gentler curve reads either as prudent engineering or as a newcomer protecting itself while it catches up, and both can be true at once.

It is a quietly significant moment for a marque still finding its feet. Audi has not yet won anything in F1, yet its caution has been written into the rulebook every rival will now build to. The package still needs sign off from the World Motor Sport Council on June 23 in Macau, though with everyone aligned the vote looks like a formality. When it passes, the road back toward combustion power will run on Audi’s timetable as much as anyone’s.

Thumbnail: By courtesy of Pirelli