F1 cars could return to traditional V8 engines by 2030, FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem said at the Miami Grand Prix.
Published May 4, 2026
Four races into a new era in F1 and the peak of electricity’s influence on the sport may already be in the rearview mirror, motorsport insiders say.
The Miami Grand Prix was the first race to see changes slightly limiting the role of electric power that redefined the race this year. The president of the sport’s governing body, the FIA, said in Miami that he hopes to bring back traditional V8 engines within the next few years.
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F1 started this year with the biggest change in its 76-year history, splitting power 50/50 between traditional engines and on-board battery packs.
Only three grand prix races were held under these new rules before a series of adjustments to curb the effects of electricity were introduced. They addressed driver criticism by promoting pure driving skill over charging, especially in qualifying.
Sunday’s race in Miami was one of the most open in recent F1 history, with drivers from four teams leading the way until Kimi Antonelli clinched Mercedes’ third win of 2026.
V8 engines take F1 back to the future
FIA president Mohamed Ben Sulayem first proposed a return to larger, noisier conventional engines last year, but the idea fell through in a meeting with manufacturers.
Now, with Ben Sulayem in office for another term, his efforts to push V8 engines by 2030 or 2031 look even more serious after a backlash against electricity from some major drivers and fans. The F1 world typically plans new regulations years in advance.
“We’ve got the sound, we’ve got less complexity, we’ve got less weight. It ticks all the boxes,” Ben Sulayem said in Miami on Saturday.
“You’ll hear about that soon. There will be very small electrification, but the main thing will be the engine.”
F1 has been using V6 engines with electric hybrid power since 2014, and this year the amount of power has increased so much that they have become central to how drivers race. Electric boost and recharge timing are key to tactical racing. Four-time champion Max Verstappen hates it so much that he is questioning his future in F1.
The return to a larger V8 engine will be nostalgic for older drivers and fans of the unique engine sound. It’s relatively rare in modern vehicles, except for expensive sports cars.
FIA says car manufacturers cannot hold sport ‘hostage’
It no longer seems certain that electric cars will dominate the roads in the major F1 markets, as they did when the FIA and teams began drawing up regulations in the early 2020s.
President Donald Trump’s administration is tightening regulations on the charger networks that electric cars rely on, and the European Union is reconsidering plans to ban new internal combustion engine cars starting in 2035.
“The political landscape has changed,” Nicolas Tombazis, the FIA’s head of F1 regulation, said last week.
“When we talked about the current regulations, the car companies that were very involved told us that they were never going to make internal combustion engines again, they weren’t going to make new internal combustion engines, they were going to phase them out and by what year they would be completely electric. Obviously, this is not happening.”
Ben Sulayem said the FIA would need agreement from engine manufacturers to push ahead with the introduction of V8 engines in 2030 before agreeing a five-year timetable for current cars, but would have more freedom to act without an agreement for 2031.
The world of F1 has long appealed to car manufacturers by promising innovation related to road cars, but now the FIA doesn’t seem too keen on cars resembling those for everyday drivers.
“We need to protect our sport from the global macroeconomic situation, which means we can’t be hostage to car companies deciding whether we participate in the sport or not,” Tombazis said.
“We want them to be part of our sport, which is why we have worked hard to secure new participants. But we also cannot be in this position where we are simply left vulnerable if they decide they don’t want to participate.”
