Enlarge / F1 has a few more months before it has to finalize the technical regulations for 2026. (credit: Darren Heath/Getty Images)

F1 is set to undergo another of its periodic technical rule changes in 2026, undertaken every few years in an effort to keep the racing safe and at least somewhat relevant. The sport is adopting carbon-neutral synthetic fuels and switching to a simplified, if far more powerful, hybrid system, powering cars with much less drag. But early simulation tests have been alarming, with cars that were at times "undriveable," according to a report in Motorsport .

The FIA, which is in charge of F1's rules and regulations, wants cars that can race each other closely and entertain an audience, so expect the 2026 cars to generate less aerodynamic downforce, since that is often conducive to processional racing.

Reducing drag is a bigger priority to the FIA, especially since the new hybrid system, which still regenerates energy under braking but no longer also from the engine's turbocharger, won't have the energy sufficient to aid the car's combustion engine throughout the entire lap.

Enlarge / After a 10-year gap, Lola is back developing an electric racecar, or at least the powertrain for one, as it will enter Formula E next season. (credit: Lola)

In 2022, we brought news that Lola, a once-famous racing company, was planning its renaissance . Lola never really cracked Formula 1, but it did have success in IndyCar and sports car racing with cars it designed and built from the 1960s until it ceased trading in 2012. Now, under new ownership, the company has been rebuilding its engineering facilities and expertise. And together with Yamaha as its technical partner, it has chosen Formula E for its official return to professional motorsport.

Formula E's dart-shaped electric single-seaters are getting a bit of an update before they start season 11 next year. We expect new bodywork, better tires, and perhaps the ability to use the front electric motor to send power to the wheels instead of just acting as regenerative brakes on the front axle, but those components are all spec parts, meaning every team has to use the same ones without modifying them.

That goes for the battery, too, but there is freedom when it comes to the 470 hp (350 kW) electric motor that powers the rear wheels. And then there's the software, without which the car won't go anywhere.

Enlarge / Red Bull Racing team boss Christian Horner faced the media at an F1 press conference earlier today in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. (credit: Bryn Lennon/Getty Images)

Formula 1 has been embroiled in a scandal as its 2024 season gets underway. As Ars detailed on Monday , the team principal for Red Bull Racing, Christian Horner, was investigated by his organization for what was described as "controlling and inappropriate behavior" toward a female member of his staff. Now, we've learned that the staff member has been suspended with pay by the F1 team.

A spokesperson for the team told The Guardian that Red Bull was unable to comment on an internal matter.

Last week, Red Bull issued a statement about the dismissal of the grievance, stating that the complainant has a right of appeal but that it "is confident that the investigation has been fair, rigorous, and impartial."

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images)

Formula 1's 2024 season burst into action this past weekend at the Bahrain Grand Prix. The 10 teams had just spent three days conducting preseason testing at the Sakhir circuit, but Friday's qualifying session was the first time everyone left the sandbags in the garage. On Saturday, we got a true reflection of just how much of a gap there is between Max Verstappen in the Red Bull and the other 19 drivers.

The prospect of a third runaway championship for the Dutch driver will be too much for some fans to stomach, and social media is full of complaints from people who want to cancel their F1 subscriptions. Not everyone can find the excitement in a race for second place, after all. Luckily, F1 isn't the only game in town.

Check out Formula 2

Take this year's Formula 2 season, for example. As the name suggests, it's the feeder series for F1, a place for younger drivers to cut their teeth before (hopefully) moving up to the main attraction. Everyone uses the same car in F2, and for 2024, it's all-new. The car is built by Dallara, which also makes IndyCar's chassis, the Japanese Super Formula car, the Formula 3 car, and sports prototypes for Ferrari , Cadillac , and BMW . It's powered by a 3.4 L turbocharged V6 with around 620 hp (462 kW).

Enlarge / The Ford Performance Supervan 4.2 has spent a couple of weeks at Mount Panorama in Bathurst, Australia. (credit: Ford)

Ford's series of Supervan demonstrators now have a long pedigree of going faster at racetracks than vans are supposed to go. The current example is Supervan 4.2, which was built to celebrate—and draw attention to—the fact that there's a fully electric version of the commercial vehicle . And its latest feat is a new unofficial lap record at Mount Panorama in Australia.

Supervan wasn't racing there—few competition events other than the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb have rules loose enough to let it enter. But the van was sent Down Under on a promotional tour that started with some demo laps before the Bathurst 12-hour sports car race, which was held a couple of weekends ago at the Mount Panorama circuit in New South Wales.

Instead of just showing up, doing some demo laps, and leaving, the Ford Performance team and Supervan decided to hang around and put on more demo laps this past weekend, when the circuit played host to a round of the Supercars championship—think Australian NASCAR.

Enlarge / While it's hard to read too much into preseason testing times, it's also hard to see anyone really challenging Red Bull or Max Verstappen for outright speed. (credit: Mark Thompson/Getty Images)

The sixth season of Drive to Survive, Netflix's blockbuster behind-the-scenes sportumentary, went live today. This isn't a review of that. Instead, for the past few days my attention has been turned to Formula 1's preseason testing, which got underway on Wednesday morning at the Bahrain International Circuit in Bahrain.

In the olden days, preseason testing was a thing you'd read about in the specialty press—a reason to buy a copy of Autosport in February, if you will. There was a lot more of it back then , too; up to five official preseason tests, although it was unusual for a team to attend all of them.

In F1's current era, there isn't really time for so much testing, even if it weren't strictly limited by the rules. The first race of what should be a 24-race calendar takes place next Saturday (March 2), with the final round, also in the Middle East, not scheduled until December 8. Contrast that with the early 2000s, when a season might run for 16 or 17 races between early March and mid-October.

Enlarge / Don't you hate it when an important email ends up here? (credit: Getty Images)

Last week, Formula 1 formally rejected a bid by Andretti Cadillac to join the sport as an 11th team and constructor. Among the details in a lengthy justification of its decision, Formula 1 wrote that on December 12, it invited the Andretti team to an in-person meeting, "but the Applicant did not take us up on this offer." Now, it turns out that the Andretti team never saw the email, which instead got caught by a spam filter.

Not even a follow-up?

"We were not aware that the offer of a meeting had been extended and would not decline a meeting with Formula One Management," the team said in a statement. "An in-person meeting to discuss commercial matters would be and remains of paramount importance to Andretti Cadillac. We welcome the opportunity to meet with Formula One Management and have written to them confirming our interest."

F1 apparently never followed up with a phone call or even subsequent email during the six weeks between that initial invitation and its announcement at the end of January. Had the two parties gotten together, it's likely that Andretti could have cleared up some other things for F1 as well.

Enlarge / The current crop of GTP hybrid prototypes look wonderful, thanks to rules that cap the amount of downforce they can generate in favor of more dramatic styling. (credit: Porsche Motorsport)

Porsche provided flights from Washington to Daytona and accommodation so we could attend the Rolex 24. Ars does not accept paid editorial content.

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla.—Near-summer temperatures greeted a record crowd at the Daytona International Speedway in Florida last weekend. At the end of each January, the track hosts the Rolex 24, an around-the-clock endurance race that's now as high-profile as it has ever been during the event's 62-year history.

Between the packed crowd and the 59-car grid, there's proof that sports car racing is in good shape. Some of that might be attributable to Drive to Survive 's rising tide lifting a bunch of non-F1 boats, but there's more to the story than just a resurgent interest in motorsport. The dramatic-looking GTP prototypes have a lot to do with it— powerful hybrid racing cars from Acura, BMW, Cadillac, and Porsche are bringing in the fans and, in some cases, some pretty famous drivers with F1 or IndyCar wins on their resumes.

But IMSA and the Rolex 24 is about more than just the top class of cars; in addition to the GTP hybrids, the field also comprised the very competitive pro-am LMP2 prototype class and a pair of classes (one for professional teams, another for pro-ams) for production-based machines built to a global set of rules, called GT3. (To be slightly confusing, in IMSA, those classes are known as GTD-Pro and GTD. More on sports car racing being needlessly confusing later.)

Enlarge / Michael Andretti wants to take his racing empire to Formula 1, but he's facing resistance. (credit: Daniel Kalisz/Getty Images)

The Formula 1 grid will stay at just 20 cars for the next few years. Earlier today, F1 revealed it has rejected a bid by Andretti Global to join the sport for 2025. The move was not unexpected; neither F1 nor most of the teams have shown any enthusiasm toward Andretti's entry. The sport sent out a lengthy statement explaining its reasons for turning down the Andretti entry but said that "it would look differently on an application" in 2028.

It's a blow to both Andretti and its fans, but the move also signals increasing disharmony between the FIA, the sport's organizing body, and Liberty Media, which owns the commercial rights to the F1 world championship.

Andretti Global first announced its plan to enter F1 last January, seeing it as a natural expansion for an organization that already races in IndyCar, Formula E, Extreme E, and IMSA sportscar racing, among other series. A month later the FIA formally opened an application process for new teams to enter the sport, but of the four applicants only Andretti had the backing of a major automaker behind it—in this case General Motors' Cadillac brand.