Adrian Newey delivers alarming 'blown apart' F1 2026 warning with ...

Adrian Newey has warned that the F1 2026 regulations could see a “pretty significant” chance of the field spreading out again after a period of closeness.

Red Bull’s chief technology officer is reportedly set to leave the team after 18 years, but explained in a recent interview that the upcoming regulation changes could have a high chance of “blowing the grid apart” after years of convergence.

Multiple reports have stated Newey has informally communicated a desire to leave Red Bull, though a team spokesperson told PlanetF1.com that his existing contract with the team runs until the end of 2025 and they are “unaware of him joining any other team.”

Nonetheless, planning is set to be in place for a significant change to Formula 1’s regulations in which both the chassis and power units are changing at the same time – a rare occurrence in F1 – in 2026, heralding the arrival of the likes of Audi, as well as Ford, who are naming partners of Red Bull Powertrains.

Newey admitted that the wider fan community does not generally enjoy seeing cycles of one-team domination, as is the case now with Red Bull and Max Verstappen, but added that the trend of one team flying out of the traps after a regulation change often results in a wider field spread – which does not benefit the series as a whole.

“People do lament that the results have been dominated, fortunately in our case by us, but by one team during these rules to date,” he recently told Motorsport.com.

“But that can obviously change. It’s definitely closing up. And who knows what will happen next year? One of our rivals could easily overtake us.

“If you look at history, then whenever there’s a regulation change, more often than not one team reads it better than another. And there’s a period of domination.

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“We had that with Mercedes on the PU side, when there was a big PU change in 2014. We’ve had it in other times there have been regulation changes.

“We also had this huge change in 2022, and the grid is probably starting to converge. I’d be amazed if it wasn’t, and I think it’s going to be a much tighter fight for us this year than it was last year.

“And no doubt it will be an even tighter fight for everybody next year. So, just as everything’s starting to converge, and fans are starting to get what they want, we have got an even bigger change – because it’s the first time I can remember we’ve got a new PU and chassis happening at the same time.

“So, the chances of that blowing the grid apart have to be pretty significant.”

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