What is Really Powering F1?
Formula 1 is on fire in 2026. The question now is what will increase the heat?
Every race teaches something. This is something RACER Brand, and Pfanner Advantage Founder Paul Pfanner knows from experience. After Melbourne, Formula 1 may need to decide which energy truly fuels its future.
Engineers learn how to extract speed from physics. Drivers learn how to live at the edge of risk. Teams learn how to turn information into advantage.
But racing is learning for the sport itself as well.
And after the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne, Formula One may have learned something important — though perhaps not what it expected.
Because beneath the excitement of a new technical era sits a simple question the sport eventually has to answer:
What energy is Formula One really running on?
“We wanted to attract more manufacturers… and that’s why this project started.”
Stefano Domenicali President and CEO of Formula One Group
Three Energies in Conflict
The 2026 regulations represent one of the most significant technical resets in modern Formula One history. The new power units split energy roughly 50–50 between internal combustion and electrical systems, placing far greater emphasis on harvesting and deploying energy around the lap.
That direction reflects the broader reality of the automotive world. Governments are pushing electrification. Manufacturers want road-car relevance. Formula One wants to remain a laboratory for future mobility.
From a strategic standpoint, those decisions make sense. The rules attracted new manufacturers and kept existing ones committed.
But motorsport has always lived at the intersection of three constituencies: manufacturers, regulators, and fans.
Manufacturers want technical relevance.
Regulators want responsible progress.
Fans want great racing
Those energies do not always move in the same direction. And in Melbourne, that tension surfaced almost immediately.
Drivers, who are usually the first sensors of change, were unusually candid about the new cars. Max Verstappen described the experience as feeling like “Formula E on steroids,” frustrated by the heavy emphasis on energy management. Lando Norris was even more blunt, suggesting the new generation of cars may be the worst he has driven.
“If it's drivers, fans, we just want the best for the sport. It's not that we are critical just to be critical. We are critical for a reason, we want it to be Formula 1, you know, proper Formula 1 on steroids. Today, of course, again, that was not the case.”
Max Verstappen Four-time F 1 World Champion
The concern was not resistance to innovation. Drivers understand evolution better than anyone. What they were describing was something more subtle — the sense that racing itself had shifted from pushing flat-out to managing a complicated energy equation.
At the same time, the race produced plenty of action. Early laps featured repeated overtaking battles that were genuinely exciting to watch. But even those moments raised a question inside the paddock: were those passes driven by primal human racing instinct, or by AI-influenced battery deployment cycles?
That distinction matters.
Because Formula One is not just an engineering exercise. It is a narrative engine.
The Sport Is On Fire
It is also important to acknowledge something obvious: Formula One is hot right now.
The sport has rarely been more culturally visible. F1’s global fan base now exceeds 800 million people worldwide, with more than 40 percent under the age of 35. Young digital-native fans from every continent and every background are discovering the sport and making it part of their identity.
The live audiences tell the same story. The Australian Grand Prix weekend in Melbourne set another attendance record in 2026, with more than 480,000 fans through the gates across four days.
Brands see that energy clearly.
Technology companies, fashion houses, luxury brands, and aspirational consumer companies are investing heavily in Formula One because the sport vividly represents the cultural moment these audiences live in. It reflects speed, innovation, global connection, and ambition.
For many young fans, Formula One does not represent nostalgia.
It represents their now.
That cultural energy matters enormously.
Formula One today is powering something larger than racing. It is powering self-esteem, aspiration, and value creation across a global ecosystem of teams, sponsors, media platforms, and partners.
The economics tell the same story. The average Formula One team is now estimated to be worth more than $3.5 billion, with Ferrari alone valued above $6 billion.
The grid itself is expanding again. Cadillac joined Formula One in 2026 as the 11th team, paying a $450 million anti-dilution fee just to enter the championship, while Audi tansformed Sauber into a full factory operation for the new era.
In other words, this is not a sport managing decline.
It is a sport managing success.
F1 is powering self-esteem and value creation at full throttle. Until it’s not.
The Essence of F1
At its core, motorsport runs on a simple principle:
Racing is learning.
Engineers learn. Drivers learn. Teams learn.
Over time, the sport itself learns.
The question after Melbourne is straightforward:
What exactly are we learning?
Are we learning how to manage the electrical energy of the new power units?
Are we learning how to satisfy the strategic priorities of global manufacturers?
Or are we learning something about the emotional energy of the audience that makes the entire enterprise possible?
Those energies cannot be equal if the sport intends to succeed. One of them ultimately has to sit at the center.
I Can’t Unlearn This
Over the years I’ve developed a simple belief about organizations and institutions.
Brands are behavior.
Not slogans. Not strategy presentations. Behavior.
What an organization repeatedly does reveals what it actually believes.
Formula One’s behavior today reflects a sport navigating multiple pressures at once: environmental responsibility, manufacturer investment, technological innovation, and global entertainment growth.
All legitimate forces.
But behavior shapes identity. And identity shapes belief.
Fans do not simply watch Formula One. Historically they have believed they were witnessing the pinnacle — the best drivers, the best teams, and the most advanced machines competing at the absolute edge of human capability.
That belief is the sport’s most valuable asset.
Which raises a simple brand test.
No one walks into McDonald’s and orders a hot fudge hamburger.
Could the company technically produce one? Probably. But it would violate the logic of the brand.
Sports work the same way.
Formula One has always been many things — engineering competition, technological experimentation, global spectacle.
But at its heart it has always been something simpler:
the fastest drivers in the world pushing the fastest machines to the limit.
That behavior is the brand.
“It’s not so much about the racing. Developments are moving toward ever-greater restrictions for drivers, but the essence of Formula 1 is that it’s a world championship for drivers, not engineers.”
Bernie Ecclestone Ex-CEO of Formula One Management Group
The Power of “No”
Bernie Ecclestone had plenty of flaws during his decades running Formula Ond Management Group. History, is by nature, a debate, but instead, let’s focus on now..
But he possessed one leadership instinct that is increasingly rare in modern institutions.
He understood the power of the word “no.”
Not because he resisted change, but because he understood that every brand has a center of gravity. If too many agendas accumulate, the identity of the thing itself begins to blur.
The audience ultimately decides the success of any era of Formula One.
The Real Power Unit
Formula One engineers spend their lives optimizing power units.
But the real power unit in this sport has never been mechanical.
It is passion.
Passion from drivers who risk everything to compete. Passion from teams who devote their lives to solving impossible problems. Passion from the global audience that now sees Formula One as part of its cultural identity.
That passion runs on a simple fuel. Belief.
Fans must intuitively feel that they are witnessing the pinnacle — the best racing series, the best teams, and the best drivers competing in the ultimate story of human acceleration.
Acceleration in speed.
Acceleration in technology.
Acceleration in human capability itself.
That belief is what turns a race into a story.
And right now, Formula One is running at full throttle.
F1 is powering self-esteem and value creation at full throttle. Until it’s not.
The economics of Formula One have never been stronger. The global audience has never been larger. The cultural relevance of the sport has rarely been higher.
Which is exactly why this moment matters.
Passion is the real power unit in Formula One. Belief is the fuel.
Because success has a way of tempting organizations to protect complexity instead of protecting belief.
