First we've seen that Lando is under investigation for doing an extra formation lap without the race control's order. Then we've seen in a different notification that Russel, Tsunoda and some others too are also under investigation (they didn't say Norris there). Then we got the message that it will be investigated after the race (Lando wasn't included in that either) and then nothing else. Do we have any information about that?

Asking this because I feel the lower engine covers go well with the natural shape of the car’s engines.

Going into the last race of the season Max and Ham are tied but if neither scores in this race then Max wins on account of having more season wins then Hamilton. So Verstapen could take out Hamilton ending both of their races and win the title. My question is are there any penalties. Max can incur from this that would take away the title from him.

Side note I’m aware this is very unlikely people are hyping up the drama too much they’ll race fair at least to an extent I’m just curious on the rules in that situation.

Edit: Just wanted to add a thank you to all y’all (can you tell I’m from the south). So many people with helpful input and very little blatantly biased fanboys throwing meaningless insults. I think this is truly the best f1 subreddit, at least shares the most brain cells.

So I was wondering what would happen if F1 were to remove all technical regs for a season. What would the cars look like? And would they look similar? And what about the engine? So I thought I would ask people who actually know something about the technical side of F1, what do you think would happen?

“In mid-2020, changes to the floor regulations were announced for the 2021 season which saw limits to the floor in a bid to slow down the cars and reduce downforce. These changes appeared to hurt the low-rake cars the most, including Mercedes and Aston Martin” -SkySports

If regulators wanted to introduce a rule to pull back on Red Bull’s domination, what rules could be changed to effectively target this?

There is the minimum weight limit on the car and the minimum weight limit of the driver is 80kg.

Is it allowed to drop below the values after the race or does the car meet this criteria also after the race?

Lets assume we have 70kg driver and we add 10kg ballast. Driver loses 3kg during the race, so we would end up at 77kg for the driver or do teams account this via putting more ballast into the car so the car ends up over 80kg for the driver?

because i think i never saw a car disqualified because of that reason

Can I get an explanation on the ruleset for the pit stop penalty that VCARB received last week?

Announcers always say that "you can't touch the car for 5 seconds". But there must be more to it than that, as the mechanic only touched the car for a brief moment and then they waited the 5 seconds.

Is is that you can't touch car for the "first" 5 seconds? In that case, even if they'd waited another 10 seconds after the mechanic had let go of the car, they still would have incurred a penalty?

If I follow that logic, then the VCARB mechanic should have alerted everyone and they should have just immediately started working on the car knowing they were going to get the penalty. Perhaps that's too much coordination to expect for an edge case in the heat of the moment though.

I have been watching F1 for about 8 years now, not as much as others however I am filled with info on the history and old controversies as well. Everyone seems to be pretty mad about RB breaking the cost cap, and I just tend to disagree with it being a straight out "cheat".

FIA stated what the penalties will be when cost cap was introduced, but they didn't say what exacts punishments for exact ammounts you overspend with, so that opens up a spot for teams to risk and be cheeky, maybe overspent a bit here and there when you know that 5% is a lot of money and FIA seemed to not realize what big of a deal can it be.

If you can defend yourself and get the punishment lowered to as less as possible even better for the team doing it no? F1 always had loopholes (i know this isnt exactly that) and innovations that weren't all legal, so why is taking a risk with the cost cap when you know the punishment is possibly very low and get an advantage?

TLDR; RB took a risk and it will most likely work out for them. Other teams didn't and possibly lost a bit of performance because of it.

Please be nice in the comments, I am genuinely interested in peoples opinions!

There doesn't seem to be much optimism about the upcoming 2026 regulations. While the FIA is putting significant effort into improving aero rules to promote closer racing, are we just setting up for another scenario like Mercedes during the start of the turbo-hybrid era, where one team dominates because they nailed the engine design? How likely is it that history repeats itself, with performance gaps driven more by power unit than anything else?

Would he take his own place on the grid (9th), Checo’s place (16th) or would he be forced to start from the pitlane? Or would he not be eligible to drive at all?

Seeing that Latifi and Albon both didn't get out of the way for the Ferrari cars in Monaco - Albon being particularly bad in this regard, ignoring at least 10 flags - why weren't they penalized? Why did Ferrari not protest that?

Seems to me like the penalty for such a performance should be a ban in the next race. I'm no Ferrari fan but this situation upon replay seems extremely screwed up.

Not sure if this regulation stuff is considered technical or not.

Just waiting for quali and as it keeps getting delayed it got me wondering, what happens if the track is not ready for quali through out the day and the track is not ready for quali? How is the grid for the race decided? Do they do a quali session on race day? Has this happened before?

So we all saw how Russell attempted to overtake Checo at turn 8 by "dive-bombing" on the inside. Russell ended up bumping into Checo forcing him to take an exit road and rejoin after turn 9.

A friend of mine is saying that Russell was entitled to attack and since Checo went off the track, he should've given the position to Russell. His reasoning is that Russell's front tires were ahead of Checo's rear tires at the start of the turn 8 therefore Russell is entitled to attack.

My understanding is that Russell was NOT entitled to attack because his front wheels went ahead of Checo's rear wheels before they ended the breaking zone.

Who is right?, Are we both wrong? Idk. I'm unable to find the overtaking rules in the sporting and technical regulations so if someone could link me to where it is, that'll be great <3

Pretty self explanatory. It’s the pinnacle of Motorsport and engineering, yet we don’t use a system that’s on most advanced sports cars today.

I understand it’s initial ban in the early 90s to keep things competitive. It doesn’t seem like there would be an issue if it was added to the regulations for 2025, aside from it making cars faster.

Edit : automobiles to sports cars

With the minimum weight requirement and all points-winning cars being weighed, what happens if a car gets it's front wing (or really any part) knocked off on the final lap yet wins the race? How do they weigh it and ensure it meets the minimum? Has this ever happened?

This question arises due to a gap in my understanding of the regulations. I know all cars are required to complete the full race distance, but does this distance include the formation lap?

If so, does this require cars starting in the pit lane to complete their own formation lap prior to the race start in order to fulfil the race distance? Or do they start with less fuel?

Do they check every car? Or is it like the checks where cars get chosen at random. Surely Mercedes would have the same exact parts on both cars? I don't think they were running seperate upgrades this weekend, so why is only George under?

How they would decide who was third? Laps in front? Qualy position? Splitting points?

So I know that the start and finish line are not in the same spot, the finish line is usually somewhere in the middle of the grid, and the actual lap is measured from the finish line.

So my question is, since some of the drivers are usually starting behind the finish line (depending on track layout), is their Lap 1 timed starting from lights out, or starting from the moment they cross the finish line?

F1 Regulations Assistant - Custom Bot

Hello Everyone!

I've worked for some time on this one, I've fed over 30 documents from FIA, and other sources, including Sporting Codes, Circuit Related Info, i.e., Light Signals, Tube Insert Tyre Barrier Regs, Car Homologations, Technical Lists, Test House Lists, FIA Standard Lists, Driver Equipment Lists, i.e., HANS Device, Helmet, Clothing Mats and Safety Equipment Regs, Medical Information, the whole database of F1 from 1950 (720K lines of data), and muuuch more. (There are tons of files, god...)

The CustomGPT also analyzes images and cross-references them with the regulations to determine if they comply or not, or it simply provides its own thoughts.

I'd like you hear your though, and how can I go on about making it better.

Edit: I've configured it to refer to FIA Documents Website for up-to-date information. It can read PDFs on websites so it's working somewhat great.

Dont the big teams have their own private wind tunnels? And can use it freely?

On a Facebook post, I saw a commenter suggest that the FIA call a VSC to remove Albon's mirror, but instruct drivers to drive through the pit lane.

Can this be done? My understanding is that FIA can only instruct drivers to drive through the pit lane on a full safety car, but not a VSC.