Former Ferrari Engineer Jock Clear claims 2026 won't be like 2014

However, former Ferrari engineer Jock Clear, whose latest role was heading the Scuderia's driver academy, is adamant that will not be the case. He reportedly left at the end of the 2025 season.

With changes to the chassis and the power unit, active aero, boost, and overtake modes, there is a lot of skepticism regarding the new rules F1 will introduce in 2026, especially on the back of a very exciting season in 2025 where Max Verstappen and Lando Norris fought for the title till the final lap of the season finale in Abu Dhabi, the Briton emerging on top.

But Clear insists there is no guarantee 2026 will be the same had F1 and the FIA not changed the rules.

He explained: "I think in fairness, it's like a lot of these things, when you're administrating anything, a company, a country, a sport, you have to sort of stay ahead of the game.

"And, you know, you're often in situations where, I think 2013 was the same, where we had seven winners in the first seven races, and people say 'Why are we changing it? Why don't we just leave it as it is?'.

"And I think if you look at it from the organiser's point of view, if you fall into that trap, then it's very difficult to respond when the sport starts to go flat.

"So F1 has had a very good year in 2025 and we've all been really excited about a three-driver shootout at the very last race of the year. That's always good for the sport.

"But if you just leave it as it is, then who knows what happens next year," Clear pointed out. "If next year isn't great, then suddenly the fans are saying 'This needs a bit of a revamp, what's going on?' and the organisers haven't got anything in the pipeline.

"It takes 3 years to put things in place nowadays. In terms of the FIA and F1, they have to look that far ahead, and if you look 3 years back, all of the fans were saying it was boring, Max Verstappen is winning everything, and before him, Lewis Hamilton won everything.

"They were responding in a timely fashion, and I think that's what they have to do," the Briton maintained.

As for those worried about one team enjoying an advantage over its rivals in 2026, like Mercedes did with their imperious power unit in 2014, Clear believes that will not be the case.

"Next year will be exciting for different reasons," he said. "I think it may well be exciting from the point of view of who is going to be in the mix, how well teams have adapted to the new regulations.

"I'd like to hope that the 2026 season goes all the way to the finale, and that we're fighting it out for a champion at the end of the year.

"Obviously, we didn't see that in 2014, and I think people have sort of jumped on the engine regulation change like it was in 2014, is going to be exactly the same as it was in 2014.

"Some team is going to do a better job on engines, and therefore it's all going to be very processional. I don't think that's the case next year.

"I think the systems that they put in place for dealing with differences between power units is actually is very good, and should allow teams to respond," he pointed out referring to rules allowing manufacturers who are behind to catch up, something Renault and Honda did not enjoy at the start of the V6 turbo-hybrid era in 2014.

Clear then went on: "Let's just see what happens, we're talking about it and we have been talking about it for the last year, and that's part of why the sport is in rude health.

"People are talking about it, not just Max Verstappen against Oscar Piastri or against Lando Norris in the last couple of races, but they've been talking about next year for a year, so that's how the sport works, is various aspects of the excitement."

With the way the 2026 cars are going to be, there will be a lot of technical matters for all stakeholders in F1 to get to grips with, but Clear is relishing this fact.

He said: "The technophiles, and I'm one of those, I'm an F1 fan, because I love the technology, and I like the fact that it's at the forefront of engineering, there's a lot of fans out there like that.

"Netflix has brought in a new type of fan, but there's still the base fans out there who are technophiles and love the technology and love the fact that the engineering is always pushing forwards, and I think next year we're going to see a lot of that.

"The headlines might well be all about the engineering of the cars and the engineering of the power units, but that's not a bad thing, you know?

"It is a technology-driven sport, and as such, we enjoy the fact that there's a lot of technology involved, and there's a lot of discussion around that technology.

"That's what we're here for," Clear, who was Charles Leclerc's engineer when the Monegasque joined Ferrari, concluded. (Quotes from CasinoHawks)