The FIA announced yesterday that it has restructured the Formula 1 system. The 2021 World Championship aims to draw a line in a process that began following a controversial move.
The sport’s governing body will inevitably focus on whether it can reduce the confusion, inconsistencies and mistakes that plagued last year’s race.
The FIA has launched an “analysis and clarification exercise” three days after the 2021 season ended in bitter condemnation at Yas Marina. The result is a 3,300-word report published three months later that sets out changes to how the sport’s governing body runs the most prestigious championship.
Race director Michael Massey has been sacked for failing to properly adhere to series rules during the final lap restart that will decide the fate of the 2021 drivers’ title. But the report also recommended reducing the responsibilities of Macy’s position.
“The role of race director is inherently demanding and high-pressure,” he said. “A recurring theme in the detailed analysis and debriefing exercise was the concern that the number of race director roles and responsibilities accumulated over the years could place additional pressure on the job.”
“Comments made and interviewed by the F1 Commission suggest that some of the race director’s responsibilities could be devolved and delegated to other people to reduce the race director’s workload and allow them to focus on their core activities, including managing and controlling them. race,” he added.
This led to a number of changes introduced in time for last season, such as the expansion of the race management team and the creation of a remote operations center to provide additional support to it. However, other key recommendations from the report could not be finalized before the 2022 championships.
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Yesterday, the FIA announced that “the reorganization of the Formula 1 departments is now complete and will be implemented before the 2023 season.” A key development was the filling of the role of FIA F1 Sporting Director, which was announced last March. Significantly, the position has been taken by Steve Nielsen, who has four decades of experience in the series and was most recently the Sporting Director of Formula 1 himself.
For F1, Nielsen’s departure seems unfortunate timing to coincide with the departure of motorsport director Ross Brawn. But RaceFans understands that the series has submitted Nielsen to the FIA to improve the performance of the race control unit. It is a sign of the dynamic between F1’s commercial arm, which is run by Independent Media, and the FIA, which runs its most popular series. F1 is clearly keen that the FIA’s efforts to reform its governance succeed and the benefits will be seen in 2023.
It’s not hard to imagine why. The FIA had no choice but to replace Massey; But doing so will not cure all the underlying problems identified in the report itself. Although the judges’ decisions always provoke debate, there were still many problems with race management last year.
In the year The new race direction team installed in 2022 has received praise from drivers for some of its policies, notably introducing a hard and fast rule clarifying the gray track limits: the line is the border, there are no exceptions. This may not have stopped arguments over track restrictions – some mistakes were too late to be acted upon in time, as in Austria – but it was a more transparent system than the chaotic arrangement that had gone before. Clearer guidelines for racing events were also issued and widely followed.
In other cases, the FIA has responded quickly to errors by implementing new procedures. Drivers were angered by the decision to send a recovery vehicle onto the track during the safety car in the heavy rain at Suzuka, but a quick and detailed report was produced and a new warning system was immediately launched.
Also, not all of the mistakes made by race control in 2022 were necessarily that. Race management was criticized both for delaying the start in Monaco in anticipation of heavy rain and for not delaying the start despite heavy rain in Japan. At Monza they were pilloried for using a safety car to finish the race, but a crashed car’s faster-than-expected recovery left them with no option under the rules on that occasion, unlike last year in Abu Dhabi.
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But, with all the good will in the world, there have also been times when races have been mishandled by officials, leading to unnecessary confusion, inconvenience to drivers and – in the worst case – further danger.
In the year The confusion surrounding the race that decided the 2022 drivers’ championship exemplified the FIA’s challenges and weaknesses. Verstappen’s second title win was overshadowed by poorly executed season rule changes.
In the year The FIA will no doubt consider changing the half-points rule at the Belgian Grand Prix in 2021, which will consist of no more than one lap behind the safety car. Unfortunately, the new laws introduced as a result did not work as intended.
When Verstappen won the Suzuka race by a cut of 52 percent, the teams and spectators expected not to be awarded full points, so he had to wait until the next round to become the champion. If not, Verstappen is convinced he has indeed won the title. Crucially, revising F1’s sporting regulations will now be the responsibility of Sporting Director Nielsen, rather than the Race Director.
In the year This wasn’t the only case with major implications when minor rules changed in 2022. The rules regarding pit lane exits were adjusted in the off-season, and as a result, partial exits on the lane no longer result in penalties. Ferrari were not happy to find this out after Sergio Perez challenged their driver Carlos Sainz Jenner to victory in Monaco.
Despite the FIA’s quick response to the mistake that caused Pierre Gasly to pass the recovery car during the safety car period at Suzuka, race control failed to recognize that the Alfa Romeo driver had been shot in the first place. So he will face the crane quickly.
Gasly’s team-mate Yuki Shunoda suffered another mismanagement at Interlagos, not dissimilar to the Abu Dhabi fares. He was wrongly denied rejoining the lead lap when the FIA system mistakenly decided that he had disengaged during the Safety Car period.
Haas was angered by the lack of consistency around the use of the black-and-orange flag, which saw Kevin Magnussen loose front wing end plates three times, but Fernando Alonso did not appear to get lap after lap on the American circuit. A wing mirror came loose and fell. Haas’s protest against Alonso was upheld but later rejected when team principal Guenther Steiner was misinformed by FIA race director Nils Wittich on the deadline to submit their papers.
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These were the main issues, but there was much more besides indicating which race control should be fixed in 2023: wide variation in the time it took to make decisions on different race issues, disagreements over whether teams should be able to bring charges before stewards, and advice on race control when drivers wanted to give up a place to a competitor. Uncertainty about whether or not to expect them.
With the FIA’s new regime in place, the first test of the 2023 F1 season will be whether it has properly addressed the major problems that plagued one of the championship’s most controversial finals and still won the series last season. The FIA expects improvements this year, and just as importantly, so does F1.
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