New standardized ruleset for 2026 competitions

[AhmadAmine998]

Discussions are welcome. Main changes proposed so far:

1. Add a cost cap to relax hardware configuration within a budget limit. The goal is to give more design flexibility while capping a pay-to-win advantage.
2. Ban tire additives all-together as opposed to tire additives that leave trails on the track. This is due to the apparent issue with enforcing the old rule for ICRA 2025.
3. Relax car dimensions to include tamiya-size chassis (smaller).

[Copilot]

Pull Request Overview

This PR introduces a standardized ruleset for 2026 F1TENTH competitions with three major changes: (1) implementing a cost cap system with detailed Bill of Materials (BoM) requirements, (2) imposing a complete ban on tire additives, and (3) relaxing dimensional constraints to accommodate smaller chassis like Tamiya-sized platforms.

Key changes:

• Cost cap system: Teams must submit a Final BoM listing all hardware components and their retail replacement costs, which must not exceed COST_CAP_USD. The BoM will be published after the event.
• Tire additive ban: All tire additives are now strictly prohibited with specific penalties for violations including tire replacement, disqualification, or standing adjustments.
• Relaxed specifications: Vehicle dimensions now allow smaller chassis (Width: 150-341mm, Length: 340-654mm), hardware component restrictions are removed in favor of cost-based limits, and any brushless DC motor, ESC, and LiDAR sensor are permitted within the cost cap.

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[jara001]

Discussions are welcome. Main changes proposed so far:

1. Add a cost cap to relax hardware configuration within a budget limit. The goal is to give more design flexibility while capping a pay-to-win advantage.

IMHO this is not a good way to go. You basically say that there will be a pay-to-win advantage... and I dare to say it will be even bigger than before. Let's discuss this in the meeting. (topics: timespan, price evolution, etc.)

2. Ban tire additives all-together as opposed to tire additives that leave trails on the track. This is due to the apparent issue with enforcing the old rule for ICRA 2025.

I see no problem here. It used to be in the rules before (maybe not officially?).

3. Relax car dimensions to include tamiya-size chassis (smaller).

No. This is a limit I would not go over.

[FelixReschTU]

Points 2 & 3 are fine for me. Personally, I would be interested in whether there are specific reasons for the ban on tire additives and how additives and cleaning materials (e.g., cleaning alcohol for tire cleaning) are distinguished.

Regarding the cost cap, I have a few concerns:

• Which retail price will be used? US and EU prices typically differ, and prices also change over time
• Providing the cost cap 8 weeks before the competition is too late. If we were to receive the cost cap this late, we would probably not be able to modify our car in time to participate. This risk would keep us from registering for future competitions, as we would still need to book flights and accommodation, even if we are not racing.
• I get that the idea is to give the teams a specific budget to build a car, but then this would need to be announced way longer in advance. (Full disclosure: After ICRA 25, we started building a new car and designed it with no cost cap in mind. If we had known, we would have designed it differently. I assume a development time of one year for new cars, so if this had been announced at ICRA 25, it would have been early enough. If this is introduced this year and our new car is above this threshold, it would be deeply frustrating, as we have already spent a lot of time and effort on this new car.)
• Does the rule really improve fairness? Limiting the amount of money a team can spend on a car requires working within a budget, but it doesn't help teams with fewer resources.
• Finally, a practical consideration: How do we determine the price for this year? Just using the cost of our new car would be the easiest for us, but it would definitely not be fair or based on anything other than allowing us to compete.

If you really want to add the cost cap, I think a compromise for this year would be:

• Put the cost cap rule in and add an exception for this year (or set the cap to a really high value, so it is symbolic for this year)
• Collect the BoMs of the teams over multiple competitions to determine a sensible cost cap.
• An additional idea: Add the concept of seasons (e.g., starting in fall with IROS, ending in June with ICRA) and have a fixed cost cap for the whole season. Announce the cost cap for the next season at least 6 months before the start of the next one. (This way, teams can develop a new car with the new limits and don't have to worry for a year, if they can use the car.)

We were also discussing a few ideas for how new rules could be added in the future, and one idea was to include the community a bit more. This could include committees to draft new rules that incorporate community input. By discussing with the community and defining clear voting structures, significant changes — like a cost cap without hardware limitations — could be discussed beforehand, so teams would not be completely surprised or even angry.

[jara001]

Just copying this from the other PR to not forget it:

Merging this into dev-2026 to move towards final commit and release. Only two issues left to address imo:

1. We should add a specification to where the car may be configured in head-to-head races (i.e not in the middle of the track)

2. We should specify that the competition rules MUST specify the heat/brackets for the competition.