The materials article exists for several reasons simultaneously. It prevents the use of exotic or hazardous substances that would pose unacceptable risks in an accident. It limits the use of materials so advanced that only the largest teams could access them, maintaining competitive equity. And it ensures that the structural properties of safety-critical components are within the range that the FIA’s homologation tests are designed to evaluate, preventing teams from using materials whose behavior under crash loads is not fully understood.
The Power Unit Perimeter: Materials Inside the Engine
The power unit perimeter encompasses the components that make up the engine, gearbox, and associated hardware. Within this zone, the regulations allow a broader range of advanced materials than are permitted outside it, reflecting the fact that power unit components are not part of the primary safety structure and that high-performance materials are needed to manage the extreme temperatures and loads that internal combustion engines and high-speed drivetrain components generate.
Permitted and Restricted Materials Inside the PU
Within the power unit perimeter, manufacturers can use titanium alloys, various aluminum alloys, steel alloys, and specialist composite materials for components such as connecting rods, pistons, cylinder heads, and turbocharger wheels. The use of beryllium is prohibited throughout the entire car, both inside and outside the power unit perimeter, for health and safety reasons. Beryllium and its alloys are extremely toxic in dust or particle form, and the risk of generating beryllium particles in machining or in a crash would create unacceptable hazards for personnel working on the cars.
The turbocharger and its high-speed rotating components are subject to material specifications that ensure burst containment. If a turbocharger rotor fails at speed, the fragments must be contained by the surrounding housing rather than being ejected through the bodywork at high velocity. The material specifications for these components are part of the power unit homologation process managed by the FIA in conjunction with the power unit manufacturers.
Ceramic matrix composites and other advanced high-temperature materials are used in exhaust systems and combustion-adjacent components where the thermal environment would degrade conventional materials. The specific materials permitted in these applications are registered with the FIA as part of the power unit’s technical specification submission, and any changes to the registered materials require approval before they can be used in competition.
Gearbox and Drivetrain Materials
The gearbox casing is typically manufactured from cast or machined aluminum alloy, providing adequate strength and stiffness for the structural role it plays in the rear of the car while keeping weight manageable. Internal gear and shaft components use specialist steel alloys with surface treatments that maximize wear resistance and fatigue life at the contact stresses generated by the gear mesh loads in high-performance racing transmissions.
The carbon fibre driveshaft plunging joints and constant velocity joints that transmit power from the gearbox output to the rear wheel hubs must be designed to handle the combined torque from the ICE and the MGU-K without failure across the race distance. The 2026 torque levels, with the MGU-K’s 350-kilowatt electrical output added to the ICE’s mechanical power at the point of the rear axle, are higher than in the previous era, placing greater demands on these components than the driveshaft specifications from the 2022 to 2025 period had to accommodate.
and Their Load Cases
Carbon fibre composite is the standard material for suspension wishbones due to its high specific stiffness, which minimizes the deflection of the wishbone under lateral and longitudinal wheel loads. Deflection in a wishbone changes the wheel geometry in a way that deviates from the kinematic design intent, affecting handling balance. The regulations specify maximum compliance levels for suspension components to prevent teams from using flexible suspension elements as an unauthorized aerodynamic device, mirroring the intent of the aerodynamic flexibility rules that apply to bodywork.
The wishbone aerofoil sections, which are the aerodynamic cross-section shapes that teams use to improve the aerodynamic performance of their suspension while meeting the structural load requirements, are subject to the same bodywork regulations as other aerodynamic surfaces. The permitted aerofoil dimensions within which a wishbone cross-section must fit are specified to prevent teams from designing wishbones that are primarily aerodynamic devices masquerading as suspension components.
Under the 2026 regulations, the interaction between suspension geometry and the active aerodynamic system is a new consideration. As the car transitions between X-mode and Z-mode, the aerodynamic loads on the suspension change, and the wishbones must be designed to handle the load cases associated with both aerodynamic states without compliance that affects wheel geometry. The range of suspension loads that the 2026 wishbones must accommodate is therefore broader than in previous eras, requiring careful structural analysis across the full aerodynamic operating envelope of the car.
Wheel Material Specification
The magnesium alloy specification for wheel rims is one of the few cases in the regulations where a specific material family is mandated rather than just a performance requirement. Magnesium alloy is lighter than aluminum at equivalent structural performance, making it the optimal material for wheel rims from a pure weight perspective. The regulations specify this material to standardize the wheel’s physical behavior and to ensure that the safety characteristics of the rim, including how it deforms in a collision and how it interacts with the tyre in a puncture scenario, are within the range understood by the FIA and Pirelli.
The manufacturing process for magnesium alloy wheels in Formula 1 uses machining from forged billet material, producing rims whose internal structure and dimensional consistency are tightly controlled. Forged and machined construction avoids the porosity and microstructural variability that can occur in cast components, providing a more reliable fatigue life and reducing the risk of unexpected failure under the high cyclic loading conditions of a race. The finished rims are subjected to dimensional inspection and structural testing before they are approved for race use.
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