No — Formula 1 cars are strictly rear-wheel drive.
Why not AWD?
- Weight & complexity: AWD systems add heavy components, which kill lap time.
- Regulations: The FIA rules explicitly ban four-wheel drive.
- Purity: F1 is built around maximum efficiency. Sending power only to the rear keeps the cars lighter, simpler, and sharper.
But hasn’t it been tried?
Yes. In the 1960s and early ’70s, several teams experimented with four-wheel drive:
- Lotus 63 (1969), McLaren M9A, Matra MS84 — all flopped.
- The idea was to handle increasing engine power, but the added weight and strange handling made them slower than conventional RWD cars.
- By 1982, the FIA formally outlawed AWD in F1.
The drivertalk take
No AWD, no gimmicks — just raw, rear-driven power. That’s why you see the cars squirm and slide on corner exits: 1,000 horsepower going through the rear wheels alone. It’s harder to tame, but that’s what makes it F1.
