Honda offers clear FIA stance on key F1 controversy

Honda has delivered a clear FIA stance over the ongoing row surrounding Mercedes' supposed compression ratio engine trick.

It is alleged that Mercedes High Performance Powertrains, and potentially Red Bull Powertrains, have developed a system which could allow the new breed of 2026 power units to develop a compression ratio of 18:1 when the car is out on track.

The new rules for 2026 dictate that the ratio is required to be 16:1, but this is only when it is measured, at ambient temperature, when the car is in the pit-lane. Currently, the technology does not exist to measure the compression ratio when the car is on track.

It is believed that if a power unit is able to produce a compression ratio of 18:1, through the use of expanding metals, it could be worth around 0.3s per lap at Australia's Albert Park circuit.

Over a race distance of 58 laps in Melbourne, it could be worth up to 17.4s in race time. 

Cadillac boss Graeme Lowdon has declared that the customer Ferrari unit his team is using is "fully legal" as Audi chief technical officer Mattia Binotto called the FIA to help develop technology to measure the ratio on-track, ahead of a crunch meeting between the power unit manufacturers and the FIA on Thursday, January 22nd.

Honda is returning to F1 as a quasi-works engine supplier in 2026 with Aston Martin, as president of the Honda Racing Corporation Koji Watanabe made Honda's stance clear.

"This year starts the new regulations, the interpretation of the regulations and the operations for it, so it is not just on this, but also there are a lot of factors that need to come into discussion," Watanabe explained, via a translator, at the Honda power unit launch in Japan.

"So there's more to it, we would like to keep them aside for now. But then we want to make it clear that we want to meet and comply with the regulations as we developed in this.

"Regulations do not have everything listed very clearly, bit by bit. So in the new regulation, we look into the possibility of the new technology for each of the different power units.

"There is a lot of room for interpretation as well, and this is also part of the race. For the FIA, it's up to them to decide whether it's good or bad. 

"For Honda, we have a lot of different ideas, and we would like to discuss with the FIA to understand if our ideas are accepted or if they are not okay.

"That's how we're going to proceed; we would always look to FIA to consult them on regulation-related matters."