F1 have announced the early dꦚetails about the looming 2026 regulation over🎐haul which will see DRS replaced with a new overtaking aid.

The Drag Reduction System - which has been a feature of grand prix racing since 2011 - will be no more from the end of next season. 🐓Instead 🧸it will be replaced by F1’s new ‘Manual Override Mode’. But what is it? And how does it work?

The new power-boost system has been added to the 2026 regulations in a bid to improve overtaking opportuni📖ties.

With the redesigned power units boasting almost 300 percent more battery power, the new feature will allow drivers to use more electrical energy when they are 💫within one second of the car ahead.

How will ‘MOM’ work?

The new technology will ena🏅ble a driver t♛o use the maximum available power from their MGU-K while their rival ahead cannot.

F1’s new bre𝓀ed of cars’ energy deployment will gradually decrease after 290kph, dropping right down to zero at 355kph.

A driver using Manual Override Mode will continue to benefit from 350kW - or 0.5MJ of extra energy - all the way up to 337kph as they look 𝐆to hunt down and power past their rival.

The FIA’s single seater ꧋technical director Jan Monchaux explained that MOM “works a similar way to DRS”.

“If you are with🍌in a given distance, before the end of a lap to the car in front of you, then for the following lap, you will be given the possibilit🃏y to use more electrical energy than your opponent,” he said.

“That boost of electrical energy is there to replace what used to be the rear wing opening,🔯 to give a car that extra push to potentially go and try ꧙to overtake.”

Monchaux continued: “So when you enter the straight and the car is fairly close to the other to help the oveꦐrtaking – since both cars will have rear wing open and front wing flap open – we are going to allow the car behind to deploy more electrical energy for a given portion of time during that lap.

“Right now with the DRS you are behind a car, within a second, that ticks a box and you are allowed to ﷽open your DRS in a straight line. This will not be the case anymore. However, the logic will be the same: I’m close enough to another car, I am given an extra amount of energy for that one lap, which I can deploy any way I want.

“The extra amount of energy is defined and that will give that boost of energy to eventually give the following caꦕr a chance to overtake by the end of tꦯhe straight.”

And what about Z-Mode and X-Mode?

In addition to the overtaking aid, the 2026 iteration of slimmed-down, narrower and lighter F1 cars will feature more powerful an🔯d sophisticated active aerodynamics.

Two moveable elements on the front and rear wings will provide both a “Z-Mode” for maximum downfor൩ce and a “X-Mode" for the lowest possible drag configuration.

This system will be activated by the driver but only in certain parts of tracks where it is deemed safe to use l🐈ower levels of downforce.

“From our simulation work with the teams and their drivers, as soon as you have a rear wing that moves to reach the target drag level, it was clear that you needed to have an active front wing to match the balance chara🥂cteristics,” the FIA’s h🐼ead of aerodynamics Jason Somerville said.

“There were certain conditions where the drivers didn’t feel comfortable with a la🐬rge forward aero balance, meaning lots of downforce on the front and not much downforce on the rear. So that led us towards the need to h🎐ave an active front wing, as well as an active rear wing.”