Last Updated on November 26 2023, 10:27 am

Damned if they do, damned if they don’t. The FIA under Mohammed Ben Sulayem has become a more responsive organisation, quick to change the rules when they encounter problems with how the cars run on track.

One of the huge differences from when Charlie Whiting was the FIA delegate and F1 race director has been the monitoring of track limits. Under Whiting race control identified corners where the drivers would gain an advantage by exceeding track limits and monitor them during the competitive track sessions.

 

 

 

Race Control changes the game

However, the limited technology deployed by Whiting and his team led to inconsistencies which many in the paddock found to be unfair.

Now the FIA has a control centre based in Geneva and staffed with scores of people examining every car through every turn on the circuit.

This led to the farcical situation at the last two Austrian GP where over 100 incidents were reported to the stewards during the race. Clearly the stewards were overwhelmed and failed to act upon each of these incidents causing a protest from Aston Martin that a number of cars were not penalised properly.

The promoters of the Red Bull Ring have been informed they must change the kerbs at the final two corners where the vast majority of the track limits transgressions occur so the cars a physical penalised for leaving the circuit.

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However, these kerbs were used in Qatar which caused chaos when Pirelli claimed they were damaging the tyres significantly and the FIA was forced to change the layout of th circuit before qualifying.

Now another rule change this weekend in Abu Dhabi has frustrated the drivers because it is making the exit from the pit lane a tortuous affair.

The drivers must complete their slowest out lap in a minimum time to prevent dawdling on track. This rule change during the 2023 season then saw the teams react by sending out their cars travelling at a snails pace until they reach the end of the pit lane, thus creating the gap they need from the car in front.

In Abu Dhabi where uniquely the pit lane exit passes through a narrow tunnel under the track so drivers were in effect blocking each other with Verstappen deciding to pass the Mercedes pair during an interrupted practice two session.

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Norris calls for rule change

The world champion was within his rights to do this, but then the race director banned overtaking before the end of the pit lane exit for the following sessions unless the car in front has an “obvious issues.”

Lando Norris believes the rule change has just created more issues than it fixes.

“I think it is a terrible rule,” he said. “The thing is they have to have the rule, because of the other silly rule that they made us do.”

Norris is referring to the minimum time drivers must adhere to introduced after the summer break.

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Alonso claims qualifying format “obsolete”

“If there’s a red flag and three minutes left, there’s going to be like three cars who get to do a lap so…I don’t know. We should just go back to the way it was before,” argued the McLaren driver.

Formula One’s most experienced driver has been claiming for some time that the current qualifying format for which the rule has been designed, snow obsolete and has called on the FIA for a rethink.

“I think it didn’t change much, but it proves that the qualifying format is obsolete,” said the Spaniard over the race directors instruction this weekend.

“We cannot have these things and this stress. It [qualifying] used to be the best session of the weekend, where the cars come alive, you drive these very fast cars.

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Verstappen agrees “better solution” required

“And now it’s the worst session of the weekend for the teams, for drivers, for traffic management, for track limits, going to the stewards, not respecting the delta, impeding people, deleting the laps is…

“We are all happy that it’s over. And it should not be like that.”

Max Verstappen revealed the drivers were somewhat corralled into agreeing to the rule change for Abu Dhabi.

”Us drivers agreed to that in the briefing, to have that. Otherwise I think you would have seen again what happened yesterday [Friday],” he said.

“At the moment nothing is perfect yet, so we have to come up with a better solution but we’ll keep on thinking about what that is.”

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Alonso favours 1 lap shootout

Alonso is known to favour a previous qualifying format, similar to how Indycar set their grid when racing on the oval circuits. This was used briefly in Formula One before being replaced by the current procedure which has broadly been in place since 2006.

For the three previous years qualifying had been decided by each car taking to the track on its own, delivering one fast lap and then returning to the garage. 

The driver with the fastest lap would claim pole and then on down through the times to form the grid. This gave the smaller teams more television exposure and was an attempt to stop teams staying in the garage for much of the qualifying session.

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FIA ‘too reactive’

The FIA fiddled with this adding another session and an aggregate time, but it was ditched because one driver would get the perfect weather conditions and track temperatures. It was argued the fastest driver was then not necessarily on pole position.

Its unlikely the FIA will return to this qualifying format which Alonso favours, but may race control can learn that persistent interventions to solve one problem then has a knock on effect creating further difficulties a weekend or two later.

By attempting to appears responsive at times the FIA and race control are merely acting in a hasty and reactive fashion.

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