FIA announces 5 decisions on F1 at July 23 World Council meeting
The third FIA meeting of the season took place on Tuesday July 23 at the Formula One Management offices in London. During the meeting, chaired by Nikolas Tombazis and Stefano Domenicali, a number of hot topics were discussed.
As last year, the Formula 1 authorities took advantage of the Belgian Grand Prix weekend to organize a meeting to discuss and address certain points of the future regulations. Chaired by Nikolas Tombazis, Director of Single-Seaters at the FIA, and Stefano Domenicali, President and CEO of Formula 1, this meeting clarified certain points and made numerous decisions. Here is a brief overview of them.
Updated points of the regulation
One of the main topics at this congress was the question of points allocation in the championship. While F1 teams and the FIA seemed to agree on expanding the number of drivers scoring points to 12 instead of 10 to reward smaller teams, the situation recently changed. Indeed, the high number of different race winners and very close cars shifted things, leading the FIA to decide not to make any changes on this matter.
It was unanimously agreed not to change the distribution of points in the championship (as described in articles 6.4 and 6.5 of the Sporting Regulations) following a recent proposal to consider extending the points allocation beyond the tenth place at a Grand Prix, as stated in the FIA statement.
During this meeting, some points of the financial regulations were also discussed, notably maternity/paternity leave and sick leave, which are now excluded from the budget ceiling. This constituted a major sticking point with a regulation that aimed to include certain personnel-related expenses in the cost limitation, a decision that has now been reversed this Tuesday, illustrating the Formula 1 teams’ commitment to the well-being of team members.
The weight of F1 cars has been increased to preserve the health of the drivers.
The decisions made also concerned the weight of the car and the driver, both of which will increase from 2025. As for the driver, it will go from 80 to 82 kg to promote the health of the drivers, especially those of tall stature like Ocon or Russell who were compromising their health to meet the FIA standards. As a result, the single-seater will also increase by 2 kg without fuel to reach 800 kg. A car even heavier but which should be adjusted with the new regulations of 2026.
More private testing days
One of the issues of this meeting was to address the regulations for 2026. First, the FIA has set to modify the pre-season testing. For the past 2 years, they were held over two days, but the FIA has decided to extend them to 9 days starting in 2026. This will allow each team to be better prepared for the first race of the season, gather more data and information about their car, and solve any reliability issues that will have less impact over 9 days compared to 3 days.
In this perspective, several points of Regulation 2026 have been analyzed, notably the race calendar. The goal is to offer a continuous spectacle for fans through tighter and more exciting races. The FIA also shows its support for environmental issues with a more suitable calendar in order to reduce costs and energy consumption of each team through shorter journeys.
Let us remember that even if they were validated at the end of this meeting, all these decisions still have to be submitted to the World Sports Council, which must approve them so that they can then come into effect. A new meeting will take place on October 2 to discuss issues related to 2026, a regulation that continues to raise concerns but also excitement among each team.
