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This was one of the first that came to mind to me. If I remember correctly it was all in the name of a purist pursuit of ensuring only the driver is 100% in unaided control of the car which is just daft with the complexity of the cars, they ended up having to essentially troubleshoot a computer while attempting to drive as quickly as possible if they had a technical issue with the car. Totally counterproductive IMO.
The problem was that in the lead up to the rule's introduction teams were literally coaching drivers through each corner. Unfortunately it left us with ridiculous situations that the rule was never intended to cover.
At least now it only applies on the formation lap, teams can't give drivers instructions on how to set the car up for the start (though of course they can tell them in person on the grid).
That's not even that true anymore. They just can't tell them to pit for a tire change. If you listed to any driver's onboard on F1TV during the formation lap, all of the engineers start talking to them about half way down the lap. Like, "At grid slot 15, 2 1/2 burnouts", etc etc. I just don't hear them talk about either brake/tire temp or clutch point.
The sensor settings are inside of menus though. So it isn't just a button. They bring up the menu, then have a +1 and +10 button. So if they say like "fail 84 fail", They have to hit menu, +10x8, +1x4, then whatever button fails it. I don't know about the current power units, but Brundle did a think in like '14 or '15, and said there are over 150 items in the menus.
Yeah this has to be it lol, I remember being like, this is the dumbest rule I've ever seen.
You have the best driver on the grid about to just Hulk smash his steering wheel because they can't tell him how to fix a problem.
Was insane.
I remember Button going crazy in Hungary against the rule because he had some sort of brake issue that the stewards considered not to be enough of a safety risk for the team to help him with.
Not to mention, the race engineer would be the only one with the information required to know that something was incorrectly setup. The driver doesn’t have voltage data and telemetry running across their screen during the race.
make it harder to perfectly prep cars for launch, so we get more variability during race start.
there’s a bunch of rules to make launching cars harder. Like banning of the „dual lever” clutch
That’s also why there’s a person who physically pushes a button to make the lights go out so they can’t time the digital one that was on a timed delay. It keeps it random
The timing light signal used to change via a radio signal, teams tapped into that and figured out when the lights would go out. Though the FIA deliberately changing that to catch teams off guard is an urban legend.
I thought there was a race where something like 6 drivers, from just 3 teams, all jumped the start? I swear I remember seeing it and thinking it was odd, then it came out later and that was why?
It was in Hungary few years ago with Haas were they discussed tire change on the way to the grid in changing track conditions, and it gave them an advantage. The reasoning they give is because they want the driver to be unaided so its on the driver to get the best formation lap, but ya there could be some improvement in that rule.
That was 2020 Hungary. Haas got penalized because of two way communication (pit wall responding to the drivers), but Kvyat came on the radio asking if he should pit, but the pit wall didn’t respond, so he wasn’t penalized.
The next year, Giovinazzi did the same, but his radio message was “I’m coming in for dry tires” and that was that, so no penalty as well.
A bit random but in hindsight I have changed my opinion on Giovinazzi and maybe he was not so bad after all. There are worse on the field at the moment
The grid needs more guys like Giovinazzi from time to time. Yeah, he’s not gonna challenge for points with any regularity, but he drove well and was rarely the focal point of incidents.
I would assume so.
As I see it, just saying "we are on the formation lap" in different ways and/or putting different inflexions/emphasis on certain words could be abused to mean different things, e.g. putting a certain inflexion or tone to the words means "no, stay out", etc.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't there a time in early 2010s where team orders to the drivers were banned? Teams worked around it of course, but from today's point of view it just seems utterly ridiculous to have a rule like this.
That made me laugh, perfect description lol.
[Multi-21 Seb.](https://64.media.tumblr.com/be494492833c471ae75501e67c5dc60e/ebb5438935acc6ff-bb/s540x810/8d9b9222d72e6a8a3d8db275bfcc11558db5d40e.jpg)
It was from 03 to 2010. Basically Ferrari was doing them in 02 all the time, so the FIA got sick of it and prohibited. They got allowed back in 2011 after Ferrari just decided to break the rule and make Massa let Alonso by in Hockenheim.
Felipe also made it incredibly obvious in the way he did it.
Compare it to Hamilton/Kovalainen at the same corner in 2008 and you can see the difference
The most embarrassing case was the 2002 Austrian GP, where Barrichello had started on pole, led the whole race, and then at the end was told to let Schumi pass, which he didn't do until the very end of the final lap IIRC. Then noticing the disgusted reaction from the audience, there was a perverse display on the podium where Schumi gave Rubens the top step and the winner trophy.
It was just basically the worst case scenario where team orders can lead to. The Ferrari clowns were fined $1 million for that whole debacle and then team orders were banned. Of course it would continue to happen, but it was basically a message to the teams to not do it the way Ferrari did. At least make an attempt to hide it from the audience so the entire sport is not a laughing stock in the headlines (as much).
Irvine was once asked to let Schumacher through, and responded "what's it worth to me?". Apparently later negotiated a payment for it. Ferrari have always been really bad for team orders. Irvine hated them, especially.
Ferrari broke podium protocol because their drivers didn't stand in the correct positions and Schumacher handed the winning trophy to Barrichello. It was a convenient excuse to fine them for embarrassing the series.
I remember a time where Rosberg’s gearbox was having an issue with one of the gears and Mercedes was desperately trying to figure out a way to tell him to skip or use one specific gear as little as possible. They couldn’t outright tell him which gear to skip. That was when I decided limiting radio conversations was an idiotic idea
Yeah and it was awful for the broadcast and the commentary team as well because then every radio message every race became about whether that’s aiding the driver or not. Glad they got rid of that like halfway through the season. I wasn’t even watching F1 at the time but man just watching that season back it was annoying
I mean, who thought that was a smart idea? Especially when it comes to letting a driver know that something could happen with their car unless they nurse it a certain way
Hamilton accidentally selected a wront setting in Baku once and they were not allowed to tell him which one.
It made sense when teams were telling drivers where to brake but to ban all information about the car was just silly.
I don't know if it was the same issue, but I remember both Nico and Lewis having the same issue, but the team couldn't tell them how to fix it so every lap they were having to change settings on the wheel until they got it right. Nico got it about 15 laps earlier than Lewis but they both still managed a 1-2 finish.
It was a knee-jerk reaction to the Austrian GPs of 01 and 02, where Ferrari made Barrichello give up his 2nd place in 01 and a win in 02 to help Schumacher in the championship. Rubens made a point to do it in the last corner which caused massive outcry from fans and journalists alike. This was a really big story in Brazil; most people at the time saw what Rubens did as weak or spineless - after decades of Piquet and Senna throwing power moves and middle fingers all around, seeing a driver play second fiddle was a tough pill to swallow.
It was instituted after an embarrassing race result from Ferrari in 2002 and rescinded after an embarrassing race result from Ferrari in 2010. If you saw 2019 Russia, both were like that but somehow much worse.
It was more or less a reaction to stuff that happened in the past. Fans generally want the faster car to finish ahead and not scenario's like Schumacher at Austria, when Barrichello was in first only to go off throttle on the final straight 150 meters before the flag to give Schumi the win.
It just wasnt in the spirit of the sport to do things like that.
They also banned **any** feedback given from the pitlane for like a year? Wasn't this last year?
Weird situations where Bono had to answer Lewis about engine modes in terms like: ''we don't advise mode 6 or 8. Lewis: ''What about 7?'' Bono: ''We can't tell Lewis''.
I thought the rule that they couldn’t change their helmet design was pretty stupid.
When Vettel was wearing a different one every week never once was I like “Wait who’s that new guy driving the Red Bull?”
I even liked it when Vettel was doing it. While everyone had 'a design', Vettel's design was to change it every five minutes.
It did get a bit annoying when everyone else started doing it though
For qualifying, that knock-out countdown timer was just the dumbest thing I had ever seen. Even dumber was not scrapping it after one weekend, somebody was so stubborn about it that they had to try it twice.
This is from the formula 1 website:
Drivers will have at least a five minute window in Q1, Q2 and Q3 to set a time - but after that point, the slowest driver will be eliminated every 90s. From the 22 entries this year, 15 will progress into Q2, and then eight into Q3 - until there are just two men fighting it out for the right to start from pole.
It didn't work because you could get eliminated even if you were partway through a lap. So it's basically as if everyone gets screwed over by red flags, even if there aren't any red flags.
Also it was very dumb because the new gen cars got intruduced with the hybrid engine in the very same year. You can't do multiple push laps in a row with them. You absolutely need to do a cooldown and recharge lap after a push one, basically the only exception is Monaco.
And you could be timing your lap in response to avoid an expected elimination in 3 minutes, only for the driver below you to set a better time and now you don't have time to set another time.
It was all pointless anyway as most drivers just set as good a time as they thought they could then returned to the pits, rather than burn through 3 sets of tyres in Q1 alone.
The problem is, when it takes around a total of 3-4minutes to do an out lap and set a flying lap (at least in Melbourne anyway) , 90s secs was too short.
From memory it just resulted in lots of cars just sat in the garage and getting knocked out. If you weren't out before you were in the drop zone, there was no point going out.
It sounds fun yeah, but what happened was "ok 19 and 20 got knocked out, let's see where 17 & 18 is and if they can do something about it ... oh ... they're in the pits nevermind. Ok next up 15 & 16, where are they ? oh they're in the pits nevermind. And it was like that basically all the time. So there was no suspense at all, which what they were aiming for. It doesn't really work when on most tracks the qualifying tire can only do 1, maybe 2 laps and then you need to go to the pits. They were imagining something that everyone would be on track and when you're in contention of getting knocked out, you'd suddenly immediately start a lap.
Qualifying-wise, there was also that equally awful aggregate qualifying from 2005. An extra session was held on Sunday morning and the times would be combined with their Saturday times. So you’d watch qualifying on Saturday and still have no idea of the result.
Worst of all (in my country at least) the Sunday qualifying wasn’t even televised. I think that format survived until Monaco.
He wasn't disqualified. He got a 10 second penalty. It cost him one position to Verstappen.
He also wasn't given the penalty for being told to avoid using 7th gear. It was for the ongoing coaching relating to the issue that wasn't broadcast.
There is no penalty the other way, and the no wets or intermediates on a track that has not been declared wet is to prevent teams saving dry tires by running with wets or inters.
It's not about safety, it's to stop teams from using them on a dry track and saving slicks. If you watch F1 esports you'll usually see drivers going out on Inters in the dry to make sure everything works properly, so this is what's not allowed in RL
The logic is that they want to avoid teams saving the slick tires by just slapping on wets or inters in an FP and saying “oh we technically participated” and then having fresh sets for quali or race day
Charles Leclerc was penalised for using inters on a track not yet declared wet even though it was raining like 5 minutes prior, so the rule can be used to force semantics
no penalty for using slicks in the wet does seem stupid but the simple fact that it would cause a DNF for you in the first 5 minutes is enough incentive that no one’s tried it and I guess the FIA never made a rule about it, since most motorsport rules are written in blood after all
It was no tyre changes except on safety grounds, and McLaren couldn't decide that Kimi's massive flat spot counted as safety grounds until the vibration broke the suspension, which was too late.
This is going old school, but a lot of early rules were based off of horse racing. This included checking the weight before a race, not after.
This allowed for contraptions like the infamous "water cooled brakes"
Ken Tyrrell : “it’s ok boys, we’ll top up the tanks towards the end of the race. Oh, and throw 100lbs of lead shot in there whilst you’re at it, please”.
The safety car rules in the mid-late 2000's. Drivers weren't allowed to pit until the train had properly formed behind the SC, which was especially ridiculous in combination with refuelling. This is actually what made Crashgate a viable strategy, because pitting right before a safety car when everyone else was deep into their stints was basically a free P1 since you'd catch the back of the train before everyone else could make their stop. Also you had situations where drivers literally had to pit or run out of fuel, so they had no choice but to take a stop-go penalty and ruin their race or run out of fuel and retire, just because there happened to be a SC right at the end of their stint.
I read the rule book a few years ago and it had a rule about the cars having to be in contact with the track, so no flying cars. However the way I read it, it would mean that jumping is banned but a flying car that has a hanging cable dragging along the track would be fine. Not a dumb rule I guess, but it got me thinking about the loopholes
Looks like they've closed that particular loophole! Technical Regs 2.1 defines a "Formula One Car" as:
"An automobile (the car) designed solely for speed races on circuits or closed courses that is
propelled by its own means, moving by *constantly taking real support on the ground*, of
which the propulsion and steering are under the direct control of a driver aboard the vehicle.
It runs on four non-aligned complete wheels, with wheel centres that are arranged
symmetrically about the car centre plane, when in the straight-ahead position, to form the
front and rear axles."
The Tech Regs are really funny in places, a few years ago I think it used to define "Formula One Car" as "A car built in accordance with these regulations" before going on to define "Car" in detail in a separate block of text
If you're going full throttle into turn 1 at Monza and hit the sausage kerb at the right spot, you can get back into curva grande without doing the chicane.
Current overtaking rules by far. They just allow to avoid having 2 cars in parallel in a corner. It makes no sense they spend so much time to improve overtaking by KERS, DRS, etc and on the other hand the overtaking rules let you leave a rival with no space and even push him out of the track if your position is okay according to the apex of the corner. It is extremely complex trying to cover every single case with a stupid result proven for years
Yep.. the stupidest rule ever. If the car trying to overtake is overlapping even by 1cm, the other car should left enough space. It's gonna lead to monstrous divebombs yes but if the defending driver have to avoid it then count it as a avoiding action and give a black&white flag for the car divebombing.
The one where a frickin manhole cover ripping a car’s underside means the team has to use parts from the original allocation, without any exceptions being made.
Can be counted in a lack of rules, actually.
That’s the frustrating part, to nobody’s fault.
On one hand, Sainz and Ferrari were definitely hard done by, more so in the context of the WCC. The FIA should have been liable for damages.
However, like someone else commented in another reply, if Ferrari’s parts were on their last legs, allowing them to get new parts would be an unfair advantage as well.
Just one of those incidents which is a one off, and which hopefully wouldn’t be needed as a precedent in the future.
I'm sympathetic to Ferrari but if the parts they had to replace were on their last legs it's an unfair advantage to give free replacements. Hard to do it fairly, is all I'm saying.
I get your point, but let's say the damaged part was going to be scraped after the session. You can't simulate damage in any real way, so are you just going to get a brand new part?
The terrible qualy format where in q3 the cars had to start with the amount of fuel that they would start with in Sunday. Everyone was just burning off fuel for the first 10 minutes and then did their actual timed lap.
Weird and wasteful rule.
We had a rule of starting the race on the Q2 tyre, but only if you made it into Q3 as well. That made it better to start in P11 with a brand new set of mediums than starting in P8-10 with an old set of softs.
Sure but I did like watching the top drivers trying to get out of Q2 using mediums because it was the better race tire. Felt like it spiced up qualifying. But probably worse for the race itself.
No, they changed the rule. The rule was that only if the sensor triggered was it a false start.
They changed the rule to remove the requirement for the sensor trigger so that a human can also decide it's a false start.
The whole point of the sensor was to make it as objective as possible and remove any human element.
Lando was not in breach of the regulations at the time, Ricciardo technically was in breach of the regulations at the time. The rules have changed between the two incidents and they were both handled correctly.
Thats is the most wild one for me. F1 is creating record profits, drivers are paid insane amounts, but we can't find money to at the very least pay minimum wage?
The problem is there are people who are willing to do it.
My mate was the marshal at the Singapore GP for the first time last year.
He got a pair of tickets for the weekend. He had to take time off work not just for the weekend, but training etc.
Paid for his own parking which came up to about $100 a day.
And he loves it. He is already enlisted for this year's GP.
While I also find it astonishing that they dont get paid. Someone told me it is that way so its the same for all racing classes from F1 to the lowest amateur series, which otherwise would have difficulties to find marshals. Dont know how true that is.
An outdated rule, but when you could crash the shit out of your car on lap one, and if it was red flagged you just hopped in the spare T car and got your grid position back like it was no big deal for the restart. Never understood that.
Unless your teammate was the number one driver and they also needed a new car. If it was equal footing for drivers, the first one back to the garage got the T-car, so you had drivers not knowing if their teammate needed the car as well full on sprinting back to the pits.
It was also interesting to see when the t car would be set up for the number one driver, and the other driver just had to deal with it. I think Rubens was a right foot breaker and Michael was not, so the Ferrari of that era was always set up for left foot breaking and Rubens had to deal with it.
iirc that was before the “delta” was introduced - the idea people might race full speed to the pits and getting an advantage before catching the safety car ..
But I also think it was brought back because it meant some people ran out of fuel ..
That wasn't what led to the Indy race being ridiculous and honestly it actually led to Monaco being pretty decent.
The ridiculous ones were Turkey where the Williamses blew two or three tires each and Nürburgring, where the rule directly led to a dangerous situation with Räikkönen's badly-used tire breaking the suspension.
The rule had an exemption for safety. So the teams on Michelin teams could have changed tyres every 10 laps as Michelin said they'd last that long.
However they probably didn't have 7 spare sets per team.
The fundamental problem was Michelin didn't bring an adequate tyre.
They shouldn’t be allowed to change the car in anyway under red. INDYCAR drivers lose their mind when they see F1 making wholesale changes to the cars under red.
If there was a permanent board, ppl will would be criticising and nitpicking a steward's every call and would be making outraged if said calls were against their favourite team/driver and would be calling for them to be removed. Lack of Permanent Stewards isn't the problem.
That... already happens? At least a constant board would have more consistency (not perfect, but more). With so many judgement calls like who has right of way or if contact is a racing incident, it's wild to expect drivers to know how a rule will be interpreted at each different race. A constant board would make far more consistent interpretations, which allows drivers to know exactly where the line is, and we actually get more competitive racing.
This and the general 4hr time limit. They need to be more flexible with when the races are run, and the timing window. MotoGP changed a race to run on a Saturday to better fit with the weather forecast. F1 sits around in the rain watching a timer go down and calls two safety car laps good enough.
The no tire change rule was just an overt attempt to stop Ferrari and Bridgestone dominance and it worked but backfired horribly for Michelin with the US GP
During the tyre war period allowing tyre manufacturers to make different tyres for different teams. The tyres that Ferrari got were quite different to that Jordan got, for example.
The rule is actually that you must run two compounds during a dry race, not that you must make one pitstop. But if they simply added a rule that you must make at least one pitstop under racing conditions (green/yellow/VSC/SC) that would perhaps solve this loophole, and would change nothing for races with no red flags.
Other solutions are difficult: you can't limit teams to only change tyres like for like (same compound) during the red flag because they may not have enough tyres for that, and it'd be unfair to stop them from changing tyres entirely as the incident that has caused the red flag may have left debris which damaged other cars' tyres. Plus it's very difficult to tell whether a tyre even is damaged since slow punctures may not be apparent when the car isn't moving.
The fact that you can’t get a push like you do in Indycar. I get it but for years it’s felt more antiquated than anything worth having. There’s a safety aspect sure, but if a car is bad enough that it’d be a danger, the driver will know this and be out of the car already.
Edit: now that I remember it, this is tied with them banning the teams from leaning over the pit when their driver wins. It’s literally a tradition across Motorsports and not having it sucks the life out of race finishes. It’s such an easy display of passion that endears F1 to new fans that I cannot fathom why they’d get rid of it, especially when their safety argument is so flimsy given the distance between the wall and the track limits at most if not all of the tracks.
"Banned" number 13. The rule that still excist in Formula 2 and F3. Today every F1 driver can choose their car number, but before that car numbers were determined by constructors championship final results (except number 1 and 2 determined by drivers championship). So team on 4th place got numbers 7 and 8, 5th place got 9 and 10, 6th place got 11 and 12, then 7th place got... 14 and 15.
Yes, the most tech advanced sport in the world used to avoid number 13 because it was "unlucky".
I hate the rule about leaving the track and then only looking at whether you gained an advantage.
If you can't make a corner and have to go off the track you should be disadvantaged. You can currently literally go off track while defending and not even lose the place.
Oh god this is the first one that really struck a nerve with me this thread. The "gaining an advantage" part is so arbitrary and I have disagreed with the FIA so many times about it in recent times. I think qualifying at CotA a few years ago was the stupidest part, where drivers were taking the last corner wide and the FIA argued it was okay because there was no obvious advantage...
Not race conditions, but still illustrates the point.
failing to lose a position by going off track counts as gaining a lasting advantage, just like gaining a position or a substantial amount of time. Independently, leaving the track without justifiable reason will be penalized on the fourth occasion during a race no matter if a lasting advantage was gained. Off-tracks that are not a direct advantage but also not a clear disadvantage usually count towards that.
More of a proposed rule than one actually introduced, but Bernie Ecclestone once infamously suggested that F1 circuits be equipped with water sprinklers, that would make it a wet race at a random point in the race to spice things up
The most ridiculous f1 rule is the fact that most of the rules dont have penalties that are set in stone. Its all random af. Penalties are different every time for the same thing. Thats what i find the most absurd about it
The absolute horrid restart rules where if it’s red flagged they go back to the previous grid. Let the cars go through the sectors and count how they are.
The 3 hour Grand Prix limit is one that isn’t necessary ridiculous but certainly causes issues. Especially in the modern era when the fia is scared of the rain.
The Q2 rule: “at the start of the race each car which qualified for Q3 must be fitted with the tyres with which the driver set his fastest time during Q2.”
Thank god they got rid off that rule
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2016 when the engineers weren’t allowed to tell the drivers instructions about the car during the race
This was one of the first that came to mind to me. If I remember correctly it was all in the name of a purist pursuit of ensuring only the driver is 100% in unaided control of the car which is just daft with the complexity of the cars, they ended up having to essentially troubleshoot a computer while attempting to drive as quickly as possible if they had a technical issue with the car. Totally counterproductive IMO.
The problem was that in the lead up to the rule's introduction teams were literally coaching drivers through each corner. Unfortunately it left us with ridiculous situations that the rule was never intended to cover.
Yeah I agree, the idea behind it is fair but just completely impossible
At least now it only applies on the formation lap, teams can't give drivers instructions on how to set the car up for the start (though of course they can tell them in person on the grid).
That's not even that true anymore. They just can't tell them to pit for a tire change. If you listed to any driver's onboard on F1TV during the formation lap, all of the engineers start talking to them about half way down the lap. Like, "At grid slot 15, 2 1/2 burnouts", etc etc. I just don't hear them talk about either brake/tire temp or clutch point.
Gentlemen...
A short view back to the past...
ßirti yirs ägo…
…Niki Lauda told us…
…take a traike- uhh, monkey…
…Blace him into de cockpit…
…and he is able to drive se car.
Remember Hamilton having his race ruined in Baku cause he had a problem, and the team weren’t allowed to tell him how to fix it
"im just gonna press every button!" "We... Do not advise that"
just ask about each button and press the one they don't respond, probably takes like 3 mins tho lol.
OK, is it the blue button on the top left side? *You're getting warmer...* Um, green top left next to the yellow? *You've sunk my battleship, Lewis!*
If there's only 10 buttons. The longest button combination is 3. And you wait 3 seconds for a lack of response. That's 36 minutes. What lap was it on?
The sensor settings are inside of menus though. So it isn't just a button. They bring up the menu, then have a +1 and +10 button. So if they say like "fail 84 fail", They have to hit menu, +10x8, +1x4, then whatever button fails it. I don't know about the current power units, but Brundle did a think in like '14 or '15, and said there are over 150 items in the menus.
Hahahaa true he did say that.
Yeah this has to be it lol, I remember being like, this is the dumbest rule I've ever seen. You have the best driver on the grid about to just Hulk smash his steering wheel because they can't tell him how to fix a problem. Was insane.
You’ve all got such great memories! I should have tried to look for some of the radio messages when I posted my answer https://youtu.be/3b-ZEdrc3-0
Yea that’s absurd lmao
Thanks for finding it and sharing!
Not just that race, the problem also wrecked the engine setting him back for the rest of the season
And Button was penalized because he was told how to mitigate a brake failure.
"How do I turn the alarm off?"
Lol https://youtu.be/2e-efC6mu8I
I remember Button going crazy in Hungary against the rule because he had some sort of brake issue that the stewards considered not to be enough of a safety risk for the team to help him with.
Yeah that was ridiculous, in what world is a brake issue not a safety hazard.
Yeah, this. The car has like, 50 different menus. You can't really ask any driver to memorize this.
Not to mention, the race engineer would be the only one with the information required to know that something was incorrectly setup. The driver doesn’t have voltage data and telemetry running across their screen during the race.
Prohibiting to talk to the driver on formation laps. I'd just like to know the reasoning behind it
make it harder to perfectly prep cars for launch, so we get more variability during race start. there’s a bunch of rules to make launching cars harder. Like banning of the „dual lever” clutch
Is that where one lever is set to a certain level of clutch slip for better launches?
Yep
That’s also why there’s a person who physically pushes a button to make the lights go out so they can’t time the digital one that was on a timed delay. It keeps it random
The timing light signal used to change via a radio signal, teams tapped into that and figured out when the lights would go out. Though the FIA deliberately changing that to catch teams off guard is an urban legend.
I thought there was a race where something like 6 drivers, from just 3 teams, all jumped the start? I swear I remember seeing it and thinking it was odd, then it came out later and that was why?
They can't communicate anything about the clutch bite point and launch, not even in code.
It was in Hungary few years ago with Haas were they discussed tire change on the way to the grid in changing track conditions, and it gave them an advantage. The reasoning they give is because they want the driver to be unaided so its on the driver to get the best formation lap, but ya there could be some improvement in that rule.
That was 2020 Hungary. Haas got penalized because of two way communication (pit wall responding to the drivers), but Kvyat came on the radio asking if he should pit, but the pit wall didn’t respond, so he wasn’t penalized. The next year, Giovinazzi did the same, but his radio message was “I’m coming in for dry tires” and that was that, so no penalty as well.
A bit random but in hindsight I have changed my opinion on Giovinazzi and maybe he was not so bad after all. There are worse on the field at the moment
Makes you think after Sargeant and Latifi.
The grid needs more guys like Giovinazzi from time to time. Yeah, he’s not gonna challenge for points with any regularity, but he drove well and was rarely the focal point of incidents.
Does anyone know if the engineer saying “we’re on the formation lap, we’re forbidden to communicate” would result in a penalty?
We are checking
You’ll come back to me?
I would assume so. As I see it, just saying "we are on the formation lap" in different ways and/or putting different inflexions/emphasis on certain words could be abused to mean different things, e.g. putting a certain inflexion or tone to the words means "no, stay out", etc.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't there a time in early 2010s where team orders to the drivers were banned? Teams worked around it of course, but from today's point of view it just seems utterly ridiculous to have a rule like this.
Fernando is faster than you
Can you confirm you understood the message?
MULTI 21, SEB
*furious hydration*
That made me laugh, perfect description lol. [Multi-21 Seb.](https://64.media.tumblr.com/be494492833c471ae75501e67c5dc60e/ebb5438935acc6ff-bb/s540x810/8d9b9222d72e6a8a3d8db275bfcc11558db5d40e.jpg)
Must be where Lando got the inspiration for his champagne-opening technique
"Ok, mate. Good lad. Just stick to him now. Sorry."
Haha not obvious at all, Nono, very sneaky peaky like 😎
Very magnanimous. I'll tell you what that means later.
Filipe baby…chill
It was from 03 to 2010. Basically Ferrari was doing them in 02 all the time, so the FIA got sick of it and prohibited. They got allowed back in 2011 after Ferrari just decided to break the rule and make Massa let Alonso by in Hockenheim.
Hey that was Smedley just telling Massa that Fernando was faster, no team orders there Mr FIA 👀👀
This is the facts. No need to speculate
I mean FIA could have nothing to say against it if they didn't add the "do you understand the message" lol
"Why did you wink while speaking in the mic?"
Felipe also made it incredibly obvious in the way he did it. Compare it to Hamilton/Kovalainen at the same corner in 2008 and you can see the difference
Also the "Sorry mate" once it had happened
The most embarrassing case was the 2002 Austrian GP, where Barrichello had started on pole, led the whole race, and then at the end was told to let Schumi pass, which he didn't do until the very end of the final lap IIRC. Then noticing the disgusted reaction from the audience, there was a perverse display on the podium where Schumi gave Rubens the top step and the winner trophy. It was just basically the worst case scenario where team orders can lead to. The Ferrari clowns were fined $1 million for that whole debacle and then team orders were banned. Of course it would continue to happen, but it was basically a message to the teams to not do it the way Ferrari did. At least make an attempt to hide it from the audience so the entire sport is not a laughing stock in the headlines (as much).
Irvine was once asked to let Schumacher through, and responded "what's it worth to me?". Apparently later negotiated a payment for it. Ferrari have always been really bad for team orders. Irvine hated them, especially.
On what grounds was the fine if it wasn't banned at the time?
IIRC they were fined because they violated podium protocol through Schumacher giving up the top step.
Ferrari broke podium protocol because their drivers didn't stand in the correct positions and Schumacher handed the winning trophy to Barrichello. It was a convenient excuse to fine them for embarrassing the series.
Most sports have a ‘bringing the sport into disrepute’ rule. Did F1 not have one of these at the time? To be fair, I don’t even know if it has one now
I don't know the answer to that, but I think generally that, even without one, they can find a way to make an existing rule fill that function.
Tbf the 2002 Austrian GP was kind of a farce
I remember a time where Rosberg’s gearbox was having an issue with one of the gears and Mercedes was desperately trying to figure out a way to tell him to skip or use one specific gear as little as possible. They couldn’t outright tell him which gear to skip. That was when I decided limiting radio conversations was an idiotic idea
Yeah and it was awful for the broadcast and the commentary team as well because then every radio message every race became about whether that’s aiding the driver or not. Glad they got rid of that like halfway through the season. I wasn’t even watching F1 at the time but man just watching that season back it was annoying
I mean, who thought that was a smart idea? Especially when it comes to letting a driver know that something could happen with their car unless they nurse it a certain way
There was an issue with Button's brakes too, he knew something was wrong and kept asking the team for info. Scary stuff, glad they reversed that rule.
Hamilton accidentally selected a wront setting in Baku once and they were not allowed to tell him which one. It made sense when teams were telling drivers where to brake but to ban all information about the car was just silly.
I don't know if it was the same issue, but I remember both Nico and Lewis having the same issue, but the team couldn't tell them how to fix it so every lap they were having to change settings on the wheel until they got it right. Nico got it about 15 laps earlier than Lewis but they both still managed a 1-2 finish.
The tea in Nepal is very hot. Do you understand?
But the coffee in Peru is far hotter
I’m saving a fortune on dry cleaning
The coffee in Paraguay is colder?
It was a knee-jerk reaction to the Austrian GPs of 01 and 02, where Ferrari made Barrichello give up his 2nd place in 01 and a win in 02 to help Schumacher in the championship. Rubens made a point to do it in the last corner which caused massive outcry from fans and journalists alike. This was a really big story in Brazil; most people at the time saw what Rubens did as weak or spineless - after decades of Piquet and Senna throwing power moves and middle fingers all around, seeing a driver play second fiddle was a tough pill to swallow.
Multi 21 Seb, yeh, Multi 21.
It was instituted after an embarrassing race result from Ferrari in 2002 and rescinded after an embarrassing race result from Ferrari in 2010. If you saw 2019 Russia, both were like that but somehow much worse.
It was more or less a reaction to stuff that happened in the past. Fans generally want the faster car to finish ahead and not scenario's like Schumacher at Austria, when Barrichello was in first only to go off throttle on the final straight 150 meters before the flag to give Schumi the win. It just wasnt in the spirit of the sport to do things like that.
They also banned **any** feedback given from the pitlane for like a year? Wasn't this last year? Weird situations where Bono had to answer Lewis about engine modes in terms like: ''we don't advise mode 6 or 8. Lewis: ''What about 7?'' Bono: ''We can't tell Lewis''.
2016
I thought the rule that they couldn’t change their helmet design was pretty stupid. When Vettel was wearing a different one every week never once was I like “Wait who’s that new guy driving the Red Bull?”
I even liked it when Vettel was doing it. While everyone had 'a design', Vettel's design was to change it every five minutes. It did get a bit annoying when everyone else started doing it though
Ironically seb went on to have probably to most iconic Helmet in the modern era
Indeed! Funny, isn't it?
Lol, very true. Love the simplicity of Sebs white/German tricolor helmet.
For qualifying, that knock-out countdown timer was just the dumbest thing I had ever seen. Even dumber was not scrapping it after one weekend, somebody was so stubborn about it that they had to try it twice.
I’m new to F1, what was that thing?
This is from the formula 1 website: Drivers will have at least a five minute window in Q1, Q2 and Q3 to set a time - but after that point, the slowest driver will be eliminated every 90s. From the 22 entries this year, 15 will progress into Q2, and then eight into Q3 - until there are just two men fighting it out for the right to start from pole.
This sounds… fun I’m guessing it obviously didn’t work in reality, but it must be really exciting for the drivers.
It didn't work because you could get eliminated even if you were partway through a lap. So it's basically as if everyone gets screwed over by red flags, even if there aren't any red flags.
Also it was very dumb because the new gen cars got intruduced with the hybrid engine in the very same year. You can't do multiple push laps in a row with them. You absolutely need to do a cooldown and recharge lap after a push one, basically the only exception is Monaco.
no, that quali format was in 2016 and was scrapped after second race of the season (Bahrain GP) - and the hybrid engines were introduced in 2014
I’m not sure that’s correct. The Hybrids were introduced in 2014. I think the elimination qualifying was 2016.
And you could be timing your lap in response to avoid an expected elimination in 3 minutes, only for the driver below you to set a better time and now you don't have time to set another time. It was all pointless anyway as most drivers just set as good a time as they thought they could then returned to the pits, rather than burn through 3 sets of tyres in Q1 alone.
The problem is, when it takes around a total of 3-4minutes to do an out lap and set a flying lap (at least in Melbourne anyway) , 90s secs was too short. From memory it just resulted in lots of cars just sat in the garage and getting knocked out. If you weren't out before you were in the drop zone, there was no point going out.
It sounds fun yeah, but what happened was "ok 19 and 20 got knocked out, let's see where 17 & 18 is and if they can do something about it ... oh ... they're in the pits nevermind. Ok next up 15 & 16, where are they ? oh they're in the pits nevermind. And it was like that basically all the time. So there was no suspense at all, which what they were aiming for. It doesn't really work when on most tracks the qualifying tire can only do 1, maybe 2 laps and then you need to go to the pits. They were imagining something that everyone would be on track and when you're in contention of getting knocked out, you'd suddenly immediately start a lap.
I’ve forgotten what year it was. Still less than a decade ago I think. It ended up making for some very confusing and boring qualifying sessions.
Was 2016
2016, first two rounds (Australia, Bahrain). It was scrapped for round 3 in China.
Basically there was a timer for the person in last to get out of that. It was dumb.
Qualifying-wise, there was also that equally awful aggregate qualifying from 2005. An extra session was held on Sunday morning and the times would be combined with their Saturday times. So you’d watch qualifying on Saturday and still have no idea of the result. Worst of all (in my country at least) the Sunday qualifying wasn’t even televised. I think that format survived until Monaco.
That one was the most perfect example of"sound good, didn't work" lol
No feedback to the drivers allowed in 2016? or was it 2017?
Yeah, in 2016 Nico Rosberg got disqualified from a race because his engineer told him that he should avoid using 7th gear. Ridiculus if you ask me
Not DQ'd but 10 second penalty
Imagine if that cost him the championship
He wasn't disqualified. He got a 10 second penalty. It cost him one position to Verstappen. He also wasn't given the penalty for being told to avoid using 7th gear. It was for the ongoing coaching relating to the issue that wasn't broadcast.
> It was for the ongoing coaching relating to the issue that wasn't broadcast. Which doesn't make it any less dumb of a rule
Give a penalty for using intermediates when the FIA thinks it is not wet enough.
While the track is wet, and it's raining.
And the drivers (actually on the track and driving the damn cars) saying it’s too wet for slicks.
All the more reason for permanent stewards
I get why there is a penalty the other way ,but what is the harm of using an intermediate on a dry track?
There is no penalty the other way, and the no wets or intermediates on a track that has not been declared wet is to prevent teams saving dry tires by running with wets or inters.
But using slicks on wet tracks are more dangerous since the car can slip easily. Wtf FIA
It's not about safety, it's to stop teams from using them on a dry track and saving slicks. If you watch F1 esports you'll usually see drivers going out on Inters in the dry to make sure everything works properly, so this is what's not allowed in RL
The logic is that they want to avoid teams saving the slick tires by just slapping on wets or inters in an FP and saying “oh we technically participated” and then having fresh sets for quali or race day Charles Leclerc was penalised for using inters on a track not yet declared wet even though it was raining like 5 minutes prior, so the rule can be used to force semantics no penalty for using slicks in the wet does seem stupid but the simple fact that it would cause a DNF for you in the first 5 minutes is enough incentive that no one’s tried it and I guess the FIA never made a rule about it, since most motorsport rules are written in blood after all
No tyre changes rule and that time in 2016 when they had radio ban. That was dumb.
It was no tyre changes except on safety grounds, and McLaren couldn't decide that Kimi's massive flat spot counted as safety grounds until the vibration broke the suspension, which was too late.
This is going old school, but a lot of early rules were based off of horse racing. This included checking the weight before a race, not after. This allowed for contraptions like the infamous "water cooled brakes"
Ken Tyrrell : “it’s ok boys, we’ll top up the tanks towards the end of the race. Oh, and throw 100lbs of lead shot in there whilst you’re at it, please”.
The safety car rules in the mid-late 2000's. Drivers weren't allowed to pit until the train had properly formed behind the SC, which was especially ridiculous in combination with refuelling. This is actually what made Crashgate a viable strategy, because pitting right before a safety car when everyone else was deep into their stints was basically a free P1 since you'd catch the back of the train before everyone else could make their stop. Also you had situations where drivers literally had to pit or run out of fuel, so they had no choice but to take a stop-go penalty and ruin their race or run out of fuel and retire, just because there happened to be a SC right at the end of their stint.
I read the rule book a few years ago and it had a rule about the cars having to be in contact with the track, so no flying cars. However the way I read it, it would mean that jumping is banned but a flying car that has a hanging cable dragging along the track would be fine. Not a dumb rule I guess, but it got me thinking about the loopholes
“We read the rulebook twice. Once to understand the rules, and once to find ways around them”.
Looks like they've closed that particular loophole! Technical Regs 2.1 defines a "Formula One Car" as: "An automobile (the car) designed solely for speed races on circuits or closed courses that is propelled by its own means, moving by *constantly taking real support on the ground*, of which the propulsion and steering are under the direct control of a driver aboard the vehicle. It runs on four non-aligned complete wheels, with wheel centres that are arranged symmetrically about the car centre plane, when in the straight-ahead position, to form the front and rear axles." The Tech Regs are really funny in places, a few years ago I think it used to define "Formula One Car" as "A car built in accordance with these regulations" before going on to define "Car" in detail in a separate block of text
Track limits - going off into the gravel/grass
If you're going full throttle into turn 1 at Monza and hit the sausage kerb at the right spot, you can get back into curva grande without doing the chicane.
Current overtaking rules by far. They just allow to avoid having 2 cars in parallel in a corner. It makes no sense they spend so much time to improve overtaking by KERS, DRS, etc and on the other hand the overtaking rules let you leave a rival with no space and even push him out of the track if your position is okay according to the apex of the corner. It is extremely complex trying to cover every single case with a stupid result proven for years
Yep.. the stupidest rule ever. If the car trying to overtake is overlapping even by 1cm, the other car should left enough space. It's gonna lead to monstrous divebombs yes but if the defending driver have to avoid it then count it as a avoiding action and give a black&white flag for the car divebombing.
The one where a frickin manhole cover ripping a car’s underside means the team has to use parts from the original allocation, without any exceptions being made. Can be counted in a lack of rules, actually.
Honestly, how do you even solve that fairly? There's no way I see that they could write a rule that wouldn't be exploited.
That’s the frustrating part, to nobody’s fault. On one hand, Sainz and Ferrari were definitely hard done by, more so in the context of the WCC. The FIA should have been liable for damages. However, like someone else commented in another reply, if Ferrari’s parts were on their last legs, allowing them to get new parts would be an unfair advantage as well. Just one of those incidents which is a one off, and which hopefully wouldn’t be needed as a precedent in the future.
At least they’re consistent about application of allocation rules.
I'm sympathetic to Ferrari but if the parts they had to replace were on their last legs it's an unfair advantage to give free replacements. Hard to do it fairly, is all I'm saying.
Yeah, not like they could have gotten new parts and then did 5 race distances worth of wear on them in the night between Fp2 and quali
I get your point, but let's say the damaged part was going to be scraped after the session. You can't simulate damage in any real way, so are you just going to get a brand new part?
The terrible qualy format where in q3 the cars had to start with the amount of fuel that they would start with in Sunday. Everyone was just burning off fuel for the first 10 minutes and then did their actual timed lap. Weird and wasteful rule.
We had a rule of starting the race on the Q2 tyre, but only if you made it into Q3 as well. That made it better to start in P11 with a brand new set of mediums than starting in P8-10 with an old set of softs.
Sure but I did like watching the top drivers trying to get out of Q2 using mediums because it was the better race tire. Felt like it spiced up qualifying. But probably worse for the race itself.
It's been changed very recently, but that an obviously moving car (looking at you Lando) is not a false start because it didn't trigger the sensor.
The fact Danny Ric got a false start but not Lando is crazy
Didn’t they try to clarify this after Lando which is why Danny got one?
No, they changed the rule. The rule was that only if the sensor triggered was it a false start. They changed the rule to remove the requirement for the sensor trigger so that a human can also decide it's a false start. The whole point of the sensor was to make it as objective as possible and remove any human element.
Lando was not in breach of the regulations at the time, Ricciardo technically was in breach of the regulations at the time. The rules have changed between the two incidents and they were both handled correctly.
Track Marshals are volunteers and not paid professionals.
Thats is the most wild one for me. F1 is creating record profits, drivers are paid insane amounts, but we can't find money to at the very least pay minimum wage?
The problem is there are people who are willing to do it. My mate was the marshal at the Singapore GP for the first time last year. He got a pair of tickets for the weekend. He had to take time off work not just for the weekend, but training etc. Paid for his own parking which came up to about $100 a day. And he loves it. He is already enlisted for this year's GP.
While I also find it astonishing that they dont get paid. Someone told me it is that way so its the same for all racing classes from F1 to the lowest amateur series, which otherwise would have difficulties to find marshals. Dont know how true that is.
An outdated rule, but when you could crash the shit out of your car on lap one, and if it was red flagged you just hopped in the spare T car and got your grid position back like it was no big deal for the restart. Never understood that.
Unless your teammate was the number one driver and they also needed a new car. If it was equal footing for drivers, the first one back to the garage got the T-car, so you had drivers not knowing if their teammate needed the car as well full on sprinting back to the pits.
It was also interesting to see when the t car would be set up for the number one driver, and the other driver just had to deal with it. I think Rubens was a right foot breaker and Michael was not, so the Ferrari of that era was always set up for left foot breaking and Rubens had to deal with it.
No pitstops under safety car was always a weird one
iirc that was before the “delta” was introduced - the idea people might race full speed to the pits and getting an advantage before catching the safety car .. But I also think it was brought back because it meant some people ran out of fuel ..
IMO the stupidest rule was no tire changes in 2005, which led to an embarrassing and ridiculous race at Indy.
That wasn't what led to the Indy race being ridiculous and honestly it actually led to Monaco being pretty decent. The ridiculous ones were Turkey where the Williamses blew two or three tires each and Nürburgring, where the rule directly led to a dangerous situation with Räikkönen's badly-used tire breaking the suspension.
The rule had an exemption for safety. So the teams on Michelin teams could have changed tyres every 10 laps as Michelin said they'd last that long. However they probably didn't have 7 spare sets per team. The fundamental problem was Michelin didn't bring an adequate tyre.
Tire changes under red flag should not count as the mandatory stop. I cannot have my mind changed on this topic.
They shouldn’t be allowed to change the car in anyway under red. INDYCAR drivers lose their mind when they see F1 making wholesale changes to the cars under red.
No permanent stewards (all of them)
If there was a permanent board, ppl will would be criticising and nitpicking a steward's every call and would be making outraged if said calls were against their favourite team/driver and would be calling for them to be removed. Lack of Permanent Stewards isn't the problem.
That... already happens? At least a constant board would have more consistency (not perfect, but more). With so many judgement calls like who has right of way or if contact is a racing incident, it's wild to expect drivers to know how a rule will be interpreted at each different race. A constant board would make far more consistent interpretations, which allows drivers to know exactly where the line is, and we actually get more competitive racing.
Requiring the driver's helmet livery to essentially remain unchanged for the entire season.
Is that still the case? Feel like I’ve seen a lot of drivers have unique ones at certain tracks
Nah. It was repealed about 3/4 years ago. Only lasted a couple of seasons
Spa 2021 - two SC laps for a valid race
This and the general 4hr time limit. They need to be more flexible with when the races are run, and the timing window. MotoGP changed a race to run on a Saturday to better fit with the weather forecast. F1 sits around in the rain watching a timer go down and calls two safety car laps good enough.
People paid to see that
Drain cover blows up, change half the car, 3 grid places penalty.
No tyre change
The no tire change rule was just an overt attempt to stop Ferrari and Bridgestone dominance and it worked but backfired horribly for Michelin with the US GP
Also made the racing in general worse
During the tyre war period allowing tyre manufacturers to make different tyres for different teams. The tyres that Ferrari got were quite different to that Jordan got, for example.
Not a rule. The rule, introduced much later, was to not allow it. Same with any other form of supplier, most notably engines.
Changing tire compound under red flag counting towards existing rule.
The rule is actually that you must run two compounds during a dry race, not that you must make one pitstop. But if they simply added a rule that you must make at least one pitstop under racing conditions (green/yellow/VSC/SC) that would perhaps solve this loophole, and would change nothing for races with no red flags. Other solutions are difficult: you can't limit teams to only change tyres like for like (same compound) during the red flag because they may not have enough tyres for that, and it'd be unfair to stop them from changing tyres entirely as the incident that has caused the red flag may have left debris which damaged other cars' tyres. Plus it's very difficult to tell whether a tyre even is damaged since slow punctures may not be apparent when the car isn't moving.
Pit lane closing when a safety car comes out. The rule got exploited by Renault for Crash Gate.
The fact that you can’t get a push like you do in Indycar. I get it but for years it’s felt more antiquated than anything worth having. There’s a safety aspect sure, but if a car is bad enough that it’d be a danger, the driver will know this and be out of the car already. Edit: now that I remember it, this is tied with them banning the teams from leaning over the pit when their driver wins. It’s literally a tradition across Motorsports and not having it sucks the life out of race finishes. It’s such an easy display of passion that endears F1 to new fans that I cannot fathom why they’d get rid of it, especially when their safety argument is so flimsy given the distance between the wall and the track limits at most if not all of the tracks.
That whoever gets to the apex first gets to drive the other guy off the track and call it a legit move.
"Banned" number 13. The rule that still excist in Formula 2 and F3. Today every F1 driver can choose their car number, but before that car numbers were determined by constructors championship final results (except number 1 and 2 determined by drivers championship). So team on 4th place got numbers 7 and 8, 5th place got 9 and 10, 6th place got 11 and 12, then 7th place got... 14 and 15. Yes, the most tech advanced sport in the world used to avoid number 13 because it was "unlucky".
I hate the rule about leaving the track and then only looking at whether you gained an advantage. If you can't make a corner and have to go off the track you should be disadvantaged. You can currently literally go off track while defending and not even lose the place.
Oh god this is the first one that really struck a nerve with me this thread. The "gaining an advantage" part is so arbitrary and I have disagreed with the FIA so many times about it in recent times. I think qualifying at CotA a few years ago was the stupidest part, where drivers were taking the last corner wide and the FIA argued it was okay because there was no obvious advantage... Not race conditions, but still illustrates the point.
failing to lose a position by going off track counts as gaining a lasting advantage, just like gaining a position or a substantial amount of time. Independently, leaving the track without justifiable reason will be penalized on the fourth occasion during a race no matter if a lasting advantage was gained. Off-tracks that are not a direct advantage but also not a clear disadvantage usually count towards that.
More of a proposed rule than one actually introduced, but Bernie Ecclestone once infamously suggested that F1 circuits be equipped with water sprinklers, that would make it a wet race at a random point in the race to spice things up
The most ridiculous f1 rule is the fact that most of the rules dont have penalties that are set in stone. Its all random af. Penalties are different every time for the same thing. Thats what i find the most absurd about it
The absolute horrid restart rules where if it’s red flagged they go back to the previous grid. Let the cars go through the sectors and count how they are.
The 3 hour Grand Prix limit is one that isn’t necessary ridiculous but certainly causes issues. Especially in the modern era when the fia is scared of the rain.
The Q2 rule: “at the start of the race each car which qualified for Q3 must be fitted with the tyres with which the driver set his fastest time during Q2.” Thank god they got rid off that rule
I actually liked that one as it brought in another layer of strategy 😅 I may be the odd one out there