In the round-up: FOM CEO Stefano Domenicali suggests the sport could have longer periods of stable regulations after the next technical regulations changes in 2026
In brief
Domenicali open to longer regulation stability after 2026
With the upcoming technical regulations changes for 2026, Formula 1 CEO Stefano Domenicali has suggested the sport may look to encourage longer periods of stability between major rules changes into the future.
“This is a point of ‘is really now the time to do, in 2030, another step change?’,” Domenicali told Motorsport.com. “We are not in a position to answer today, because we need to wait and see how this new technology will come in and how this will be developed.
“Therefore, there will be a point at which we need to discuss about it, and we need to understand if the need of the manufacturers, the need of teams and the need of the engineering is definitely there as it was when there was the need to change the regulation.
“The need for change normally is put on the table for two reasons. One is because we are the pinnacle of motorsport, and we are endorsing the top level of technology. The second in the past was that, because it was pretty clear: the objective was stopping a dominance period of cars.
“But now with the new elements of regulations, budget cap and aerodynamics restrictions, I think that this point is not anymore on the table of discussion. So the real thing is technological challenge in the future. Is it relevant that the change will be in such a short time cycle of five years? That will be the point of discussion for the future.”
Red Bull announces new juniors
Red Bull has announced it has signed two karting prospects to its junior team.Fourteen-year-old Swedish karter Scott Lindblom, the current leader of the WSK Euro Series in the OK class, and 16-year-old Northern Irish talent Fionn McLaughlin – who races under a license of the Republic of Ireland – were selected to become the successful programme’s newest members following a multi-day scouting event at the Jerez circuit in Spain.
They join Red Bull’s roster of young talent, including fellow prospects Enzo Tarnvanichkul, James Egozi and Enzo Deligny. Red Bull also have two supported drivers in Formula 2, Isack Hadjar and Pepe Marti, and a trio of drivers in F3 in Arvid Lindblad, Tim Tramnitz and Oliver Goethe.
De Vries to join Super Formula
Former AlphaTauri F1 racer, F2 champion and 2021 Formula E world champion Nyck de Vries will race in three upcoming rounds of the Japanese Super Formula championship.
De Vries, who races for Toyota in the World Endurance Championship, will race a Team Impul operated Toyota at the next round of the series in Motegi at the end of August and the double-header at Fuji in October.
He will be the second Formula 2 champion to compete in the series this season after reigning champion Theo Pourchaire made a single start in the opening round of the season in Suzuka before being offered the opportunity to race for McLaren in IndyCar.
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Carlos Sainz will bring ‘gravitas’ to Williams, claims Damon Hill (Independent)
''The dynamic, how it would work with Alex Albon. That is also really important, putting two people together who work together in a team like Williams at the stage they are now, you need those guys to work together. I think they are a perfect combination. I can see these two, they’re both pretty grown-up individuals and competitive and hard workers. I think they’ll complement each other brilliantly.''
McLaren’s chief people officer on building high-performance teams (Raconteur)
''Working in Formula One is intense and we expect a lot from our people, so it’s not the environment for everyone. Obviously, there are some wonderful elements of working in this sport, but it’s not a nine-to-five job. It’s high-demand and you will need to work weekends and some late nights. Success in sport is never linear, you have to be resilient as an organisation and as individuals.''
Formula 1 and synthetic fuels (Lucas di Grassi via LinkedIn)
'The issue with Stefano's statement is that the cost limitation of synthetic fuel is inherently tied to energy production and combustion efficiencies. These factors are not influenced by current Formula 1 advancements, meaning no significant improvements will arise beyond the marketing hype generated by such claims.'
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Comment of the day
Kevin Magnussen may only be 16th in RaceFans’ mid-season driver rankings list, but AndrewT picks out a memorable highlight of the Haas driver’s season so far…
I would like to mention Lap 34 in China, where Magnussen and Lance Stroll in similarly performing cars, on the same tyre type and age, on the same strategy, spent almost the whole lap driving wheel-to-wheel throughout many corners, inside, outside, switch back – everything. And the whole sequence was super clean, and for me, one of the highlights of this season.
Of course I know we should be grateful for the seven different winners this year, but quality on-track action, even if outside the points, means much more to me.
And even though Magnussen had to give up the place eventually, I think many other drivers would have given up right after the first corner and left it to get on with their race. Magnussen might have suspected he couldn’t hold Stroll back, but why should have he stepped out of the way without a fight? I like that spirit when he can keep it clean.
AndrewT
Happy birthday!
No RaceFans birthdays today
Nick T.
8th August 2024, 5:25
Yeah, let’s make a horribly heavy, overly wide chassis with a 50% battery powered PU a long term spec. Sounds great.
notagrumpyfan
8th August 2024, 9:28
Don’t worry, even within a stable design they can still make the car heavier :P
ECWDanSelby (@ecwdanselby)
8th August 2024, 11:19
My thoughts exactly. Incredibly frustrating. Ruleset looks absolutely abysmal. But oh well, Audi are happy (for a bit), that’s all that matters.
anon
8th August 2024, 14:56
Isn’t it practically a tradition to always moan that the next upcoming rule set will be awful though?
When they got rid of the turbo engines in the 1980s, there were complaints that the cars were not powerful enough – something repeated ad nauseam whenever they changed the engine rules in the decades since then. As for the changes to the chassis rules, you could fill a book with the complaints on that front.
We’ve had people predicting the demise of the sport for decades whenever they got upset about a particular rule change, only for most of those complaints fizzling out fairly quickly when they turned out to be significantly exaggerated or just plain wrong.
We’re going to get plenty of bores saying telling us that we need more changes or fewer changes, and no shortage of people predicting that things will be terrible unless they adopt some other technologies or do things that fit their own vision for the sport – most of which will turn out to be wrong and most of which people will then change their minds about anyway.
Nick T.
9th August 2024, 8:41
But these are such clearly bad changes or really a lack of changes in the areas that need it the most: width and weight, which is making passing much harder to do aside from in DRS zones and that’s what we don’t want. It also makes them look less exciting in terms agility, makes it harder for a tire manufacturer to create a good tire, etc.
And, my god, the battery will be largely dependent on burning fuel to charge!
Its only appeal is simplicity and at that point, you may as well have just stuck with a tweaked version of the current PU spec.
Dex
9th August 2024, 18:17
They got Audi, but are losing Renault, so it’s kinda the same-ish.
kuvemar
9th August 2024, 8:56
If you don’t like batteries, it’s probably the best to cling onto those regulations as long as possible. Because it’s going to be 100 % EV in a few years. There’s no way around it.
S
9th August 2024, 12:11
There certainly is.
F1 won’t go fully electric in the near-medium future. Certainly not “in a few years.”
Dex
9th August 2024, 18:19
It’s more likely that we’ll see zero percent EV F1 cars in the medium term future, than fully electric. Even this annoying Domenicalli have spoken about the possibility of reducing this percentage with the next rule set. There are alternative fuels, and as for the batteries, well… there are many issues related to that industry at the moment anyway.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
8th August 2024, 6:48
Yes, agree with that COTD, if we’re picking personal magnussen highlights, as someone who loves wet races, it’s definitely gonna be the early laps in canada, where the full wets were performing better than inters (super rare nowadays) and he did a better job than hulkenberg climbing back towards the lead positions.
Jere (@jerejj)
8th August 2024, 7:35
Team Inpul seemingly can’t decide on a regular teammate for Yuji Kunimoto. Ben Barnicott was only ever chosen as a temporary replacement for a single round, but I was sure Hibiki Taira would become a permanent replacement for Pourchaire for the remaining campaign.
Ultimately, he only received two rounds, so he didn’t get a much longer stay.
I initially misunderstood the ”three upcoming rounds” reference as meaning this year’s remaining three race weekends before realizing after further reading that it’s about the three next races specifically, even though two of them are within the same overall event.
Therefore, another substitute for the season-finale Suzuka event in November.
Btw, Team Impul is merely a Toyota-powered team like the other ones that use Toyota powertrains & the same with the championship’s all Honda-powered teams.
COTD: I also liked their little battle & good thing it also received live world feed coverage despite them being the last two runners at the time.
Jere (@jerejj)
9th August 2024, 6:36
Barnicoat
MichaelN
8th August 2024, 11:22
Domenicali is such a word salad. They changed the rules to emphasise technology? Really? By taking away the MGU-H? By making the efficiency of the PUs worse then it was ten years ago?
Let’s be honest: they changed the rules because nobody was interested in the 2014 rules, Honda was leaving and Renault hasn’t been seriously involved. They desperately needed more manufacturers and the only way to get it was by making the PUs simpler.
Besides, let Liberty focus on the media. Their 2022 cars are no good.
Osnola
9th August 2024, 10:37
And do not forget. Dominicalli refreshed the reverse grid idea because thats what fans want..or do not yet know they want it…..not..
S
8th August 2024, 11:25
They would be better off changing the regs substantially (or even totally) every year or two.
F1 is completely irrelevant and pointless as a technical exercise now anyway, being totally driven by business and commercial interests – might as well just set the teams completely new arbitrary sporting development challenges every couple of years.
F1 needs to shorten dominance cycles – not extend them.
And no – convergence in F1 is not a reality. Never has been and never will be, no matter how long the regs stay stable for.
MichaelN
8th August 2024, 14:49
Indeed, without the MGU-H I can’t really think of anything in F1 that is on the technological edge.
And the usefulness of the MGU-H outside of a few niche areas is doubtful to begin with.
It’s puzzling why F1 thinks it needs to define itself on this topic. Just say you’re fast.
notagrumpyfan
8th August 2024, 15:25
Just as niche as the normal turbo was initially.
Now with the 911 GTS having it, I guess more sports cars will introduce it and then trickle down to more regular cars.
Just not sure if the ICE in cars will remain a big thing long enough to see it becoming very widespread, and as such it might always be considered niche.
S
8th August 2024, 16:13
If the turbo was niche – even initially – then the MGU-H is a niche within that niche.
Even then, the turbo was at least cost-efficient due to its simplicity, whereas the MGU-H never will be. It’s strictly a racing component – as you note with it being fitted to only a selection of the most expensive and exotic sports cars designed more for track days than shopping or school runs.
notagrumpyfan
8th August 2024, 17:26
And if you still consider the engine, the car, and the wheel a niche, then it would be a niche within a niche within a niche within a niche on four niches :P You cannot be stuck in the past forever!
The MGU-H is arguably a smaller step forward technically than the (initial) turbo or maybe even the dynamo.
And please don’t think the 911 GTS is a track car.
You probably confused it with the GT3 (or the old GT2)
lynn-m
8th August 2024, 15:22
And who’s going to pay for the constant rule changes?
Having to develop a completely new rule-set every year or two is going to increase costs & would actually likely lead to more seasons of dominance given how regulation changes often lead to one team coming away with an advantage.
Throughout F1’s history you always tend to get the best & most competitive seasons after several years of rule stability. There are some exceptions to that but that is usually more down to some other factor (Brawn running out of budget part way through 2009 for instance) rather than because of a new rule set.
If you want the racing to get closer & more competitive then you need to let a rule-set develop & have something broadly stable longer term. If you want to see bigger gaps between teams & less competition then change the rules every year or two.
S
8th August 2024, 16:06
The teams would spend exactly the same amount of money that they do now – all of it, that is, up to the budget cap limit.
It doesn’t cost anywhere close to $140m to design and build a couple of F1 cars each year – it only costs that much to perfect them, because the teams currently have the option to spend that much.
Some teams used to spend a lot more to achieve the same goal, while some spent a lot less – yet all of their efforts resulted in functioning F1 cars which were compared only to each other on the track at any given time.
Depends entirely on what the rules are, and how much scope there is for teams to get it right or wrong.
Tighter regs = closer performance.
Besides, if we look back over the last 25 years of F1 (particularly as design and development has become predominantly virtual/simulated) – we clearly see that stabilising the regs for longer hasn’t lead to closer competition at all. Tightening the rules, utilising a budget cap and imposing a development BoP system is proving to be far more effective than merely keeping rules stable ever has or will.
Harvey Tabasky
8th August 2024, 12:02
Domenicali is full of it. There was no regulation change when Mercedes was ringing up titles year after year. It just depends on who’s winning.
Craig
8th August 2024, 15:04
I take it 2017 doesn’t count?
Pete
8th August 2024, 14:46
I think Domenicali’s statement says a lot about why F1 struggles to fix any of the problems it has. They don’t seem to ever have consistent targets or goals so they make long-term decisions based on short-term thinking.
With the last set of changes, we were told the goal was to provide better racing and to allow the cars to follow each other more closely etc. They were moderately successful but that’s ok because that was a first attempt and with a few more tweaks, they may have a field of cars that can properly race each other without gimmicks….
That all seems to have been forgotten now though. According to Domenicali, there are 2 reasons they’d change the regs – because they don’t like the person who is winning or because they want to showcase new technology.
gogathejedi
11th August 2024, 1:08
The faster weight drops – the better. We need to saw down at least 150 kilos and 1 m length / 0.5 m width – without decreasing tyre width. If electro motor and battery doesnt fit – we can live merrily without them.
Mayrton
11th August 2024, 10:30
Yeah, Domenicali firstly needs to be able to see which team gets it right before deciding on regulation stability or not.