Tombazis: “F1 is not in intensive care, a couple of apples are enough as a cure.” Ideate changes in 2 steps

Rules under discussion Nicholas Tombazis is the main face of the Federation’s technical department, holding the role of director of FIA single-seaters. And the Greek engineer – former Ferrari – has often found himself explaining and clarifying the decisions taken by the motorsport governing body.
These are key days for the near future of F1, as reported in recent weeks. Last Thursday, a first meeting was held to analyze the data emerging from the first 3 GPs of 2026 and put forward the first proposals for improving the regulations to be implemented already in view of Miami. In an interview given a few days ago to The Guardian, Nikolas Tombazis expressed confidence in the decision-making process of recent weeks: “We are not discussing a complete rewriting of the rules. We believe that the patient is not in intensive care. The patient only needs a couple of apples a day, not to undergo open heart surgery.” Tombazis: “Changes for driveability and safety” The Greek engineer explained that there are two fronts on which the work has been concentrated: “There are issues to be addressed both from the point of view of driveability for the drivers and of safety. I don’t like to go around saying that everything is fine, but neither that it’s all a disaster. We have fans who are satisfied with the show, but we have to deal with an accident caused by specific aspects that we need to resolve and some drivers who believe that some things need to be improved.” The reference is to Oliver Bearman’s accident at Suzuka, Tombazis explained: “Every high-speed accident is always a shock. To say that it was predictable would be wrong, but the speed difference had been identified as a risk. We had talked about it, but it wasn’t easy to act before having some time to analyze some parameters. When changes are introduced too hastily, the risk is that of making things worse or causing other problems. But safety is the number one priority.” Tombazis continued: “These energy management rules will not require changes to the hardware but to the settings and software. And these are changes that can be introduced very quickly and which go to the heart of the issues, both for the speed difference between the cars and for the satisfaction of the pilots.” The FIA ​​technical director finally hinted at a road map, with potential innovations in two phases: “We could decide to have a phase 1 and a phase 2 and give a little more time to phase 2 to allow the manufacturers to make some changes.”