Under the leadership of Mohammed Ben Sulayem, the FIA has become more engaged in developing their role as the regulator of Formula One. Track limits are now policed more effectively than in previous years which means the drivers can no longer take liberties in search of ever faster lap times.

The penalty system for infringements during races was also tweaked for this year, allowing the stewards to impose a ten second time penalty for transgressions that previously would have only attracted half that amount.

 

 

 

FIA push to reduce tyre waste

Yet the president of the FIA having been accused of ‘meddling’ too much in the day to day affairs of F1, handed over this responsibility last season to Nicolas Tombazis who bears the title the FIA’s ‘head of single seater racing.’

Formula One’s tyre supplier Pirelli has been working with the FIA in an attempt to reduce the tyres shipped around the world. This led to the flawed ‘alternative tyre arrangements’ (ATA) at select Grand Prix in 2023, where the drivers were issued fewer sets of rubber for the weekend. But this attracted criticism given the F1 teams for these Grand Prix events then ran their cars for less time during the practice sessions.

The ATA was scrapped for 2024 but the tyre allocation has again been changed this season for the wet weather running compounds. This meant Japanese fans were unimpressed as in a wet FP2 just five drivers set a lap time as they mostly trundled out and back in doing exploratory laps but on slick compounds.

Having handed over his RB car to Red Bull junior Ayumu Iwasa for the first session on track, Daniel Ricciardo was the only driver to fit the intermediate compound and he delivered the most laps with nine completed before the chequered flag.

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Hamilton says rule change “makes no sense”

Lewis Hamilton noted the lack of action for the fans as he bemoaned the new regulation which had triggered the situation.

“It is shame we didn’t get that session,” he said about FP2. “They have changed the tyre rule, so therefore no one goes out and runs on the intermediate, which just doesn’t make sense, really. But there you go.”

Bizarrely, the teams in fact have more intermediate tyres under the new FIA rule, yet given the wet forecast over the weekend, they clearly wanted to save them for the more competitive on track sessions ahead. Instead of four sets of intermediates and two full wet tyres as was the rule top until this year, each driver is now allocated five sets of intermediates and three wets per Grand Prix weekend.

However, the teams used to receive an extra set of tyres on wet Friday’s which they were forced to hand back at the end of any session that day declared to be wet. This ‘free’ set encouraged the teams to run in wet FP1/2 Friday sessions within downside on the reminder of their weekend.

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F1 teams not Pirelli to blame

Today burning a set of intermediate tyres would have set back those drivers who used them in terms of their rivals having a greater allocation for Saturday and the race. In practice one there was a combined count from the 20 cars of 274 laps which dropped m miserably to just 64 in FP2. Worse still, most of those laps were not at speed.

Pirelli had no influence over the rule change which was supported unanimously by the F1 teams but their chief engineer Simone Berra was quick to admit the move had not worked in Japan on Friday.

“This [rule change] was obviously voted by all the teams together with FIA and F1,” said Berra.

“Obviously nowadays a team doesn’t have to return one set of intermediates after it is used in free practice, like it was last year. So especially at this circuit, where you have, let’s say, a high level of degradation, and considering that we could have some rain on Sunday, most of them decided to keep the five sets unused apart from RB and other teams that did an out- and in-lap.”

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Simple tweak required for the future

Berra admits the change has not worked in this scenario and promised to work with the FIA and the teams to find a solution in the coming weeks.

We need “to try to find a way to make them run in practice. It is not our decision in the end, but in the next weeks it will be a topic for discussion.”

One solution that should be considered is making it mandatory that all teams return a set of intermediates following a session that was declared wet, just as FP2 was in Japan. It would have made no sense for each of the drivers not to use a set of inters then instead of being forced to return them unused.

As happened with the Sprint format changes last year, despite the season being under way the teams can expedite a swift rule change if they have the collective will power to do it.

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Hamilton warns Mercedes not to “eff it up

Lewis Hamilton is leaving Mercedes to join Ferrari next season and certain F1 commentators have accused him of having ‘mentally checked out’ following his worst start to a Formula One season since 2009. The seven times world champion has been out qualified by his team mate on the last five occasions and George Russell has finished ahead of Lewis the last four times Mercedes cars have both seen the chequered flag.

The team developed an entirely new platform for their 2024 W15 car and have struggled to find the right setup over the first three rounds of this season. Admitting in Australia that the current car had a similar feel to its predecessors, Hamilton had been making wild setup changes in many of the practice sessions in Bahrain, , Jeddah and Melbourne…. READ MORE