Shorter Grands Prix Will Last One Season As FIA Restores Full Distances in 2028

The FIA’s newly published regulations confirm that Formula 1’s shortened grands prix will last only one season, with full race distances restored from 2028 after a single year of shorter races in 2027. The cut was a direct consequence of changes to the power units. Its reversal has been written into the rulebook before a single shortened race has been held. That tells you almost everything about how the sport regards the measure: it is a patch, not a policy.

A rule change that arrives with its own expiry date

Both RacingNews365 and RaceFans have reported that the new regulations restore full distances in 2028. F1 rarely legislates like this. Rule changes are usually presented as improvements, defended for a few seasons and then quietly revised once their flaws become impossible to ignore. Shorter races were contentious from the moment they were tied to the engine rules, and the governing body has chosen to concede the point in advance.

There is something to admire in that candour. Teams, promoters and broadcasters now know that 2027 is an exception and can plan around it. Nobody will have to lobby for two or three years to get the old format back, and nobody can pretend that shorter races were a deliberate move to sharpen the show.

The candour comes at a cost, though. By attaching an expiry date, the FIA has admitted that the distance cut solves an engineering problem rather than serving any sporting purpose. If shorter races were genuinely better, they would stay. If they are worse, the sport has decided to accept a worse product for a year because the power unit rules could not be made to fit the existing format in time.

Why the engines dictated the distance

Race distance gave way because it is one of the few variables in a Formula 1 car’s operating envelope that can be changed late.

A modern car is designed years before it races. The monocoque, and the fuel cell packaged inside it, is among the earliest elements to be fixed, because so much of the rest of the car is built around it. Cooling layouts, battery packaging and weight distribution all follow from those early decisions. When the power unit regulations shift, and with them the balance between what the combustion engine burns and what the energy recovery systems can harvest and deploy, the chassis cannot simply be redrawn to suit.

The 2026 regulations put energy management at the centre of how these cars race, with electrical deployment carrying a far larger share of total output than in the previous hybrid era. Any adjustment to that balance changes how much energy a car needs to complete a race at competitive pace. The options are limited. Teams could redesign their cars at enormous cost and at short notice. Drivers could manage energy so heavily that racing becomes an economy run. Or the race could be shortened.

The FIA chose the third option for 2027. The restoration in 2028 implies that by then the chassis and power unit rules will be properly aligned, so that a car designed under the full regulations can cover a full distance without compromise. In other words, 2027 is a year in which cars and engines were not designed for each other, and the shorter race papers over that mismatch.

Three decades of 305 kilometres, and the times F1 bent instead

Grand prix distance has been one of the sport’s most stable constants. For more than 30 years, races have been run to a minimum of roughly 305 kilometres, with Monaco the long-standing exception, plus a time limit to stop events dragging on indefinitely. The distance is part of what a grand prix is. It shapes tyre strategy, fuel loads and the physical demands on drivers, and it lets records from different eras be compared with a degree of fairness.

When fuel has been the constraint before, F1 has usually changed the fuel rules rather than the race. The turbo era of the 1980s brought progressively tighter fuel allowances, and some races were decided as much by consumption as by speed, with cars coasting or running dry before the flag. The response was to change the engines. When the hybrid era began in 2014 with a 100kg race fuel limit, fuel-saving became the defining complaint of that period. The allowance was raised to 110kg from 2019, and the distance was left untouched.

That history is why the 2027 decision stands out. For the first time in the modern era, the race has been made to fit the car rather than the other way round. By reversing the change immediately, the FIA has effectively conceded that it is backwards.

What Mercedes’ season says about the rush to adjust

The context for all of this is the first season of the new power unit era, and it has gone very much one team’s way. With six rounds remaining, Andrea Kimi Antonelli leads the drivers’ championship on 340 points, 102 clear of his Mercedes team-mate George Russell. Antonelli has won eight times. Mercedes have 11 victories between their two drivers and lead the constructors’ standings on 578 points, 134 ahead of Ferrari.

The pattern echoes 2014, when Mercedes also mastered a new hybrid formula at the first attempt and left everyone else chasing. Major engine resets tend to reward whichever manufacturer reads the regulations best, and the early years of such an era are spent with rivals catching up and rule-makers adjusting the parameters.

Singapore showed that Mercedes are not untouchable on every circuit. Max Verstappen converted pole into victory ahead of Charles Leclerc, while Antonelli finished third from fourth on the grid and Russell recovered from 19th to ninth. Still, one Red Bull win on a street circuit does not change the overall picture, and the gaps in the standings reflect a hierarchy set largely by power unit performance.

The 2027 engine changes, and the shorter races they require, belong to that adjustment phase. The sport is still calibrating a formula it introduced this year. That makes the decision understandable. It also makes the timing awkward, because the championship’s most fundamental sporting parameter is being changed to accommodate a technical correction.

With 150 points available from the remaining grands prix, Antonelli could put the title beyond doubt before the season ends. Austin this Sunday is his next opportunity to extend his lead, and one of the last races to be run over the standard distance before it is set aside for a year.

The case for living with one awkward year

The FIA was right to commit to the reversal in writing. If shorter races had been left open-ended, they would have become a bargaining chip, defended by those who found them convenient and resented by everyone else. A clear end date in the regulations removes that uncertainty and holds everyone, the FIA included, to aligning the chassis and power unit rules by 2028.

The consequences of the 2027 season still deserve attention. Shorter races alter strategy, since tyre stints, pit windows and the value of track position all scale with distance. A year of shorter races will also sit awkwardly in the record books. Every lap led, every points-per-race comparison and every endurance-based statistic from 2027 will need an asterisk. Spectators paying full price at circuits around the world will watch less racing than they did in 2026 or will in 2028.

The biggest test is for the teams. The 2028 cars will be designed in 2027, and they must be built to cover a full distance under whatever power unit balance the regulations then specify. If any manufacturer finds its car marginal on energy over a full race, the pressure to extend the stopgap will begin. The FIA has set out what it wants. It now needs to resist any lobbying to keep shorter races beyond their single season, and ensure that 2027 stays a one-off rather than a precedent.