FIA steps in on the rulebook 
The sport’s governing body has moved on the technical front. A loophole in the 2026 rules has now been officially closed off. The power units supplied by Mercedes and Red Bull are the ones in the firing line. The issue centres on the handling of electrical energy during qualifying.
The regulations call for a linear drop in power. The mandatory reduction rate is set at 50 kilowatts per second at the end of the cycle. But a technical quirk meant teams could dodge that limit. By flicking an emergency shut-off for the energy recovery system, or MGU-K, from the steering wheel, drivers could stop the reduction dead.
A penalty that meant nothing at the end of the lap
The raw mechanical gain was somewhere between 50 and 100 kilowatts over a short stretch. The FIA had tried to build in a safety net. Any manual shut-down of the MGU-K would trigger a 60-second ban on the recovery system. A proper deterrent in a race. In qualifying, though, it was basically useless.
The driver would activate it in the final burst to the line. Once the timing beam was crossed, the penalty no longer mattered. The cooldown lap that followed didn’t need any energy recovery anyway. Strictly speaking, the rule was being followed. In practice, it was being gamed.
Mechanical gremlins spotted on track
Rivals first spotted this engine map at the Australian Grand Prix. It didn’t work in Shanghai. The position of the finish line at the Chinese track made the trick pointless. Suzuka in Japan is what finally exposed the safety limits of the thing.
Messing with the energy delivery caused major instability. The Esses made that crystal clear. Kimi Antonelli and Max Verstappen both had moments in practice. Alexander Albon came to a complete stop out on track, which killed off his entire running. With reliability looking shaky, Mercedes had already pulled the plug on the map before the FIA formally banned it.
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