Article B8.2.3 of the 2027 Formula 1 Sporting Regulations, Issue 01, approved by the World Motor Sport Council on 19 October, gives each driver "an additional unit for each of the Power Unit elements listed in Article B8.2.2 a. to g. in the following conditions". Condition a. now reads "In the 2026, 2027 and 2028 Championship". Condition b. reads, as it did before, "If the Power Unit used is supplied by a PU Manufacturer who has not supplied Power Units in 2026 and is in its first year of supplying Power Units." The document prints its changes in pink, and on page B67 the only pink text is ", 2027 and 2028". Between a. and b. there is still no "and" and no "or".
In 2026 the missing word could be ignored, because one of the two readings made no sense. In 2027 both readings make sense, and they give different answers. Read the conditions as alternatives and every driver keeps a fourth engine through 2028. Read them as both required and the extra unit belongs only to a manufacturer in its first year that did not supply in 2026. An FIA spokesperson has said which one the FIA means, but Issue 01 extended the dates without writing that answer into the rule.
What the 2026 text forced
Article B8.2.2 sets the base allowance per driver per championship: three internal combustion engines, three turbochargers, three exhaust sets, two energy stores, two of each control electronics unit, two MGU-Ks and five of each ancillary component. B8.2.8 then penalises any driver who uses more than "the numbers prescribed in Articles B8.2.2, B8.2.3 and B8.2.4": ten grid places the first time an extra element of a type is used, five each time after that, cumulatively. The penalty table has no number of its own. It inherits whatever B8.2.3 means.
Issue 08 of the 2026 Sporting Regulations, published on 5 August, puts condition a. as "In the 2026 Championship". Read as cumulative, that pair asks for a manufacturer supplying in 2026 that has not supplied in 2026, so the clause would grant nothing to anyone. Flag & Clock made that argument on 10 September, when Ferrari spent its fourth engine as the last one either driver could take without a penalty.
In July, McLaren described Lando Norris's third power electronics unit, its name for the control electronics, as the "third and final power electronics unit within the permitted allocation", and F1's own site reported that the fourth would bring a 10-place grid penalty at Spa. B8.2.2 e. allows two. Only B8.2.3 can supply a third, and it supplied one to a driver whose engine maker was racing in 2026.
What the 2027 text allows
Condition a. now covers three championships, two of which are years in which a manufacturer can be in its first season without having supplied in 2026. Read as cumulative, the 2027 clause is no longer empty: it describes a manufacturer that did not supply in 2026 and is in its first year in 2027 or 2028, and it gives that manufacturer's drivers the extra unit. Every manufacturer that supplied in 2026 fails condition b. by its own wording, in every year. On that reading every driver from those manufacturers drops back to three engines in 2027, and to one fewer of every other element than in 2026.
Read as alternatives, condition a. alone gives every driver the extra unit through 2028, and condition b. matters only after that, for a manufacturer that arrives in 2029 or later. On the cumulative reading the same 2029 arrival gets nothing, because condition a. stops at 2028. The two readings now differ for the whole grid in 2027 and 2028, and for any newcomer after them.
Section B shows its drafters can say which they mean. Article B8.1.1, one page before B8.2.3, allows a team more than two cars only "when all the following circumstances are met". On page B79, a car at a tyre test "must satisfy one of the two following conditions". The same document also uses an unmarked list as alternatives: the sprint-weekend intermediate tyre rule on page B59 grants an extra set "under the following circumstances" and lists two separate routes to it, the second written for a driver "who was not previously allocated an additional set". B8.2.3 says "in the following conditions" and nothing more.
What Issue 01 had the chance to fix
Appendix B5 of the 2026 rules, under "Changes for 2027", first carried condition a. as "In the 2026, 2027 and 2028 Championships" in Issue 07, approved by the World Motor Sport Council on 23 June, with b. unchanged. The 5 August and 1 October issues reprinted it, and Issue 01 moved it into the body and kept "2026" inside condition a. of a rulebook that governs 2027, where under either reading it does no work.
The FIA's answer came through RacingNews365, which reported on 13 July that "an FIA spokesperson confirmed that the engine components available penalty-free will remain the same in 2027 and 2028 as in 2026". That is the grid-wide reading, stated as intent, 20 days after the council approved the 2027 wording and before the August and October issues reprinted it with nothing added between a. and b. Neither FIA release on the 2027 package, of 10 and 23 June, mentions the allocation, and Flag & Clock found no FIA document that repeats the spokesperson's answer. Together with McLaren's 2026 count, it points a team planning its 2027 engine usage to the grid-wide reading.
One word in a later issue of the 2027 regulations would put July's answer into the rule. Without it, the stewards who rule on the first fourth internal combustion engine fitted in 2027 would have the printed text in front of them, not a spokesperson's reply to one outlet.