​A 2026 F1 internal combustion engine is a 1.6-litre V6 turbo capped at 400kW, or 536hp, revving to 15,000rpm and burning 100% sustainable fuel. It works alongside a 350kW (469hp) electric motor for a combined peak of around 1,000hp. The biggest change from the previous generation is that the MGU-H no longer exists, and the electrical side of the power unit has nearly tripled in its place.The ICE is capped at 400kW (536hp) from a 1.6-litre V6 turbo revving to 15,000rpm.The MGU-K produces 350kW (469hp), up from 120kW (160hp) under the previous regulations.Combined peak output sits at roughly 750kW, or about 1,000hp.The MGU-H has been deleted entirely for 2026, the single biggest change to the power unit.Cars burn 100% sustainable fuel, with a maximum of 70kg allowed per race.2026 Belgian Grand Prix telemetry recorded 0-100 km/h in 2.79 to 3.04 seconds.What Is the Internal Combustion Engine in a 2026 F1 Car?A 2026 F1 power unit is built from five elements: the internal combustion engine (ICE), the turbocharger, the MGU-K, the Energy Store and the Control Electronics. That is one fewer than the six elements that made up the previous generation. The MGU-H, the motor generator unit that recovered heat energy from the exhaust and used it to spin the turbocharger, does not exist in the 2026 regulations. Any explainer that still lists it as a current component is describing a car that stopped racing at the end of 2025.The ICE itself keeps a role that predates any of the hybrid systems: it is a fully stressed structural member, bolted directly between the chassis and the gearbox rather than sitting in its own subframe, and that has been true of every V6 turbo hybrid F1 car since 2014. F1 Chronicle’s guide to how much horsepower an F1 car has covers the full power breakdown; the ICE alone contributes 400kW (536hp) of that total, with the rev limit fixed at 15,000rpm. The gearbox it bolts to still uses a multi-plate clutch for race starts, as F1 Chronicle’s guide to whether F1 cars have a clutch explains.How Does the Combustion Process Work?The four-stroke cycle in a 2026 F1 engine works the same way it has since 2014: intake, compression, power and exhaust, repeating up to 15,000 times a minute, or around 250 times a second.Air enters through the roll hoop duct above the driver’s head and is compressed by the turbocharger before passing through a charge cooler, which brings the temperature back down before the air reaches the plenums at the top of the engine. From there it travels down six inlet ports and past two inlet valves per cylinder into the combustion chambers, where fuel is injected directly into the chamber rather than into the intake tract. That direct-injection layout is shared with most modern road cars, though F1’s fuel pressure sits far beyond anything in a showroom model.One number has changed since this article was last accurate. Fuel injection pressure for 2026 is capped at 350 bar, down from the 500 bar limit that applied under th