With Formula 1 gearing up for a raft of technical rule changes in 2026, fans can be forgiven for assuming that the teams and drivers will be taking some comfort in knowing that this season is a year of stable regulations.
But F1 is an ever-changing environment, and it would simply be wrong to assume that, just because there are no major revisions to the car rules, things are going to be exactly the same as before. There are, in fact, some notable changes that have been made for the coming season, both to the technical and sporting regulations.
In this article, we’ll be taking a look at the six key rule changes coming into effect this year.
No more fastest lap point
Formula 1 will not be giving out a point for the fastest lap in 2025, having brought it back into play in 2019.
The change is triggered because of the manner in which Racing Bulls’ Daniel Ricciardo grabbed the fastest lap at the Singapore Grand Prix last year as a farewell gift to F1, taking the point away from championship contender Lando Norris even though he would not get it himself as he finished outside the top 10.
Since its implementation, there had been a feeling that there was an element of added spectacle in seeing who could get the bonus point. However, it turned out to be a let-down too regularly, as it often went to any driver who had a nice buffer behind him in the closing stages and could pit for fresh tyres late on.
Increase in car weight
Formula 1 cars have been getting heavier and heavier in recent seasons, in part due to the bigger powerunits because of the need for batteries and the ever-tougher safety requirements like the halo.
The minimum weight is being lifted from 798 kg to 800 kg this year, but this is a rule that has actually been designed to help some drivers. The minimum weight combines both the car and the driver, handing a slight disadvantage to the heavier racers.
To level things up, the minimum driver weight allowance was previously set at 80 kg, with teams needing to add ballast for anyone weighing below his number. For 2025, this number has been increased to 82 kg, and so the overall car mass limited has been upped by two kilograms.
Mandatory driver cooling system
Following the problems that drivers suffered in the heat and humidity of Qatar in 2023, the FIA is introducing a new cooling system for this season.
When conditions are deemed too hot by the FIA—forecast temperatures in excess of 30.5°C—the governing body will declare a “Heat Hazard”. Teams will then have to fit in a special system, which is in effect a battery-powered cooling vest that pumps a coolant around the driver’s body.
The regulations state that: “The cooling medium within the driver’s equipment may only be air, water, or an aqueous solution of sodium chloride, potassium chloride or propylene glycol.”
Furthermore, teams will be allowed to open up an aperture at the front of the car to increase airflow to a heat exchanger that is used as part of the driver cooling system.
To prevent teams from being at a competitive disadvantage from fitting the cooling system, the minimum weight of the cars will be increased by five kilograms to allow for any extra devices and batteries. As well as a hole to cool the components of the cooling system, another scoop can also be fitted to the upper surface of the nose to help feed air to the driver.
Ban on flexi-wings
McLaren caused a stir last year with their car, whose flexible rear wing was designed in such a way that, as it bent back at high speed, it helped open up the slot gap to reduce drag and boost straight-line speed. This concept became known as “mini-DRS”, because it achieved something similar but not quite as good as the official Drag Reduction System.
Although McLaren agreed to make modifications towards the end of the year after consulting the FIA, it did not stop some tweaks being made to F1’s technical regulations for 2025 to prevent anyone from trying to do something similar.
For this season, the slot gap width is being reduced from a 10–15 mm minimum allowance to 9.4–13 mm, with the upper boundary remaining at 85 mm when DRS is open.
The regulations state: “Except in the event of a DRS failure or the transitioning from one position into the other the DRS bodywork can have only two positions, such that the DRS bodywork position must be the same before and after each state of deployment. The transition time between the two positions must be less than 400ms.”
But it is not just with the rear wings where the regulations will be different. There has also been a tightening-up in terms of what teams can do with their flexi front wings for this year. Starting with the Spanish GP, the FIA is clamping down on how much flex tolerance is allowed in the front wings for the standard load tests conducted in the garage.
Amid concerns that some teams could go to extremes with aero-elasticity this year, from Barcelona onwards the new requirements laid down by the FIA will demand a one-third increase in stiffness.
It is not clear yet whom this change will hurt or benefit the most. Last year, McLaren and Mercedes led the way in flexi-wing designs as their main rivals Ferrari and Red Bull lobbied the FIA for some clarification over whether the two sides were pushing the limits of the regulations too much.
The FIA did conduct some extra analysis of the cars but decided in the end that nobody was doing anything untoward. This opened the door for Ferrari to begin running their own flexi-wing concept towards the end of the season, with Red Bull set to pursue their own ideas.
More track time for rookies and new testing restrictions
There have been concerns over an all-out testing war emerging ahead of next year’s regulation changes. To address said fears, an agreement was reached to establish some limitations regarding what teams could do this year.
For the first time ever, the allowance for Testing of Previous Cars (TPC), which are challengers between two and four years old, is being restricted. Teams are now only allowed a maximum of 20 days of TPC running over the entire season, with drivers competing in the championship limited to 1,000 km between them over a maximum of four days.
There has been a change in the Free Practice requirements too. Up until last year, teams had to field a rookie (who had competed in fewer than two Grands Prix) in two Practice sessions over the course of the year. For 2025, this number has been doubled.
Calming the chaos of rainy weekends
The chaos of last year’s Brazilian GP, whose Saturday Qualifying was a washout and there was a risk of not getting in a shootout for pole position at all, exposed a glaring hole in the rulebook that had been staring at us for a while. It was how the grid should be formed if circumstances mean that Qualifying cannot be run, especially amid the current complications caused by the Sprint race weekend format.
Up until last season, this circumstance was covered on the basis of stewards having the right to decide how the grid should be decided, which was normally based on the positions from the most recent Practice session.
But Brazil last year threw a spanner in the works, because on a Sprint weekend it wasn’t clear what the most recent session was. There’d be an FP1 on Friday morning but also a Sprint Qualifying session that afternoon, the results of the two being vastly different. The FIA was aware of the potential headache this could cause, which is why a change has been agreed upon for 2025 to cover things off.
The new article in the sporting regulations states that, starting this year, if there are exceptional circumstances where no Qualifying session can take place, the grid will be decided based upon the drivers’ championship classification.
There has been another small tweak to the rulebook based on another event from last season’s Brazilian GP, after Alex Albon’s car was pulled from the race but his grid position was not closed up for the start.
For 2025, the final grid will be drawn up one hour before the start of the Main Race (previously, it was done two hours prior) and cars withdrawn up to 75 minutes before the start will not be included, shuffling others forward.
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