New analysis by the FIA has revealed how hard it is for Formula 1 cars to follow each other right now - and how much better it will be in 2026.
Towards the end of a 2025 season in which drivers have increasingly bemoaned how difficult it is to race closely behind a rival, fresh data from tests conducted by the FIA has highlighted the scale of the problem.
Those CFD (computational fluid dynamics) simulations conducted of cars following each closely show that just a 5% downforce loss was experienced when the original 2022 cars were running two car lengths apart is now four times as bad.
And this downwards trend shows exactly why the FIA has worked hard to address matters with the all-new regulations for 2026.
Here we dig into the causes of the problem, what the full dataset tells us, and why there is some optimism about what's to come.
Improving the racing
Formula 1's 2022-25 regulations were conceived to improve what was dubbed the "raceability" of cars.
Greater control of the wake created by the car allows drivers to follow each other more closely and that should open the door to more overtaking.
While the current ruleset has been a qualified success on this front, the ease of following has worsened significantly as the cars have developed over the four seasons.
We have reached a point this season where races are now usually processional unless there is an outside factor such as extreme tyre degradation that opens the door for varied strategies.
While following is not as bad now as it was with the previous generation of cars, the drop-off since 2022 fuelled the push to revamp the aero concept alongside the new engines coming for 2026.
The FIA has recently completed some extensive CFD analysis that charts the story of the aerodynamic losses that cars face when following each other closely.
And its headline findings, which can be revealed here exclusively by The Race, show how things have tailed off since the new cars first appeared in 2022.
These figures are based on straightline CFD runs using two identical cars, although the FIA has also conducted studies in cornering conditions up to 40 metres behind.
It's also important to note that these studies involve baseline cars and there are variable factors in the real world, such as different car geometries and car set-up, that change this.
What the figures say
The FIA's original baseline is the performance of cars from 2019, which effectively ran until the end of that ruleset in 2021.
It was the performance characteristics of these which helped feed into the creation of the 2022 regulations - initially planned for a year earlier but then delayed due to the pandemic - based on real car geometries supplied by the teams.
The FIA tests found that in 2019 at 10 metres (approximately one car length, measured from one car's front axle to another's) the following car dropped to around 55% of the lead car's downforce level.
The original FIA analysis for the 2022 car development baseline, codenamed UNIFORM, improved that figure to roughly 85%.
However, as teams have chipped away at things, this figure has dropped to around 65% with the 2025 cars - so not far off those pre-2022 figures.
At 20 metres' distance (approximately what is classified as two car lengths) the percentage was 65% in 2019; 95% for the 2022 baseline; and is now 80% as the cars have evolved.
The 20-metre figure is considered more representative by the FIA of real-world conditions when cars are battling because it is the distance they normally race each other at.
Based on the FIA's 2026 baseline model, codenamed FANGIO, the downforce retained figure will be 80% at 10 metres (one car length) and 90% at 20 metres (two car lengths).
A new approach
While the raw number of 90% downforce retention may at face value be worse than what the 2022 cars started at, there is good reason for this.
Firstly, the FIA has removed some design aspects that helped minimise downforce losses, such as wheel arches and wheel covers, in its quest to reduce car weight. Lighter cars can be a factor in helping to encourage better racing.
Furthermore, the FIA has not just solely obsessed over chasing headline downforce numbers - as it instead has looked at other important aspects that contribute to the racing.
The regulations have been conceived to create an aero map shape that will create a more effective slipstream effect by maximising the drag loss when following.
Work has also focused on an aero map shape that will avoid the cars gravitating to ultra-low ride heights - with the 2026 cars expected to be roughly between the current low-slung cars and the higher-rake machines of the previous era.
This should make them less aerodynamically sensitive when following.
Combined together, all these elements have left the FIA confident that the 2026 cars will be a good step forward in aerodynamic terms over what F1 has right now.
Nikolas Tombazis, the FIA's single seater director, said: "We believe it's going to be better than it’s ever been."
He added: "The wake characteristics are much improved. We feel we've learned a lot from the 2022 cars to implement a lot of these learnings for the aerodynamic regulations this year."
Stopping the 'decay'
It's impossible to eliminate turbulent airflow given the laws of physics are immutable and it's important to be realistic about what is possible.
Last year, Mercedes technical director James Allison described "the whole idea of controlling wakes" as a "tilting-at-windmills type of challenge" - a reference to the famous 17th century novel Don Quixote in which the titular character believes windmills to be giants and mounts a futile and comedic attack.
It's an apt description given it's an impossible challenge, but the FIA is committed to mitigating the problem as much as it can and is at least holding back the tide.
There is also an element of the FIA facing a battle against teams chasing performance gains, which come at the costs of airflow management that is not good for racing.
This is why the FIA has worked hard to close off development avenues to try to prevent a repeat of what happened with the 2022 ruleset, where teams moved fast to bring in designs that increased dirty air.
Key areas where things are more strictly controlled are the front wing endplates, the brake drums inside the front wheels, and the floor edges. The diffuser edges and brake ducts have also played a big part in the worsening wakes.
Indeed, Allison's own Mercedes team showed the challenge the rulemakers face as in 2022 it introduced a front wing endplate geometry that was not intended to be possible but increased outwash. When the regulations were tightened up for 2023, it was still possible to achieve a similar effect in a slightly different way.
That's symptomatic of the unavoidable push-and-pull between rulemakers and competitors, with the resources vastly favouring the latter.
Tombazis said: "We've learned that in some areas of the current generation regulations some, let's say, loopholes or unintended designs caused a significant worsening [of outwash].
"The front wing endplate area is one clear area where this happened, where the front wing endplates morphed into shapes that permitted quite a lot of outwash. The inside of the front brake drums also worsened the characteristics. The side of the floors was another one.
"All of these areas, little by little, contributed to the worsening of the characteristics of the current cars. We think that, in developing the regulations for '26, we have learned a lot from that and we hope we will maintain the good characteristics for a longer period - or hopefully not have this decay again.
"There will definitely be some, but hopefully not as much as we had during this cycle."
It's also important to note that the racing will also be influenced by non-aerodynamic factors, such as the power unit performance and Pirelli tyre characteristics.
But based on the FIA's analysis, when it comes to the wake characteristics, there is an improvement that should make the on-track racing better at the start of next year. The key then is what the rate of decay is as the cars evolve.
