A 1.6-litre V6 turbo that exceeds 50% thermal efficiency, married to electric machines that harvest and redeploy energy on a per-lap allowance. The strategy is the energy budget — and the rules just changed.
The two flagged rows are the strategic constraints: deploy and harvest are capped per lap by regulation, which is what forces the energy-management game.
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A modern Formula 1 power unit is two engines working as one. At its core is a 1.6-litre turbocharged V6 burning a tightly metered fuel flow; wrapped around it is an energy-recovery system that turns waste into stored electricity and hands it back on demand. The combustion engine alone is a marvel — it exceeds fifty percent brake thermal efficiency, a figure no production road engine approaches.
Thermal efficiency is just useful work divided by the chemical energy in the fuel. With fuel flow capped by rule, the engine is forced to extract the most work from the least fuel:
Recovery comes from two machines. The MGU-K sits on the crankshaft: under braking it acts as a generator, charging the store; on throttle it motors, adding drive. The MGU-H sits on the turbocharger shaft, harvesting energy from exhaust gas that would otherwise be wasted and killing turbo lag — brilliant, but complex.
The strategy lives in the per-lap allowance. In the 2014–2025 rules the MGU-K may deploy at most 120 kW, draw at most 4 MJ per lap from the store, and return at most 2 MJ per lap to it. Spend it all on one straight and there is none left for the next:
For 2026 the architecture is simplified and electrified: the MGU-H is deleted, the MGU-K grows to 350 kW, the combustion engine steps back toward 400 kW for a roughly even split, and fuel flow drops to about 75 kg/h on fully sustainable fuel. Toggle the era above and the caps, the split, and the schematic all change — the energy game gets bigger, and more of it sits in the driver's hands.