The FIA is introducing tighter restrictions on the amount of testing teams may do with cars built for previous seasons.
However the rules will allow teams more opportunities to run inexperienced drivers instead of their regular racers.While opportunities to run their current cars outside of race weekends are tightly limited, most teams often run their earlier cars in compliance with the Testing of Previous Cars (TPC) regulations. Mercedes have done so for their new 2025 driver Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Alpine have done the same for Jack Doohan and most of their rivals have employed a similar approach.
The FIA has now moved to cap the total TPC running teams may do for the first time. From 2025 each team will be allowed to cover up to 20 days of TPC running, of which drivers entered in the championship can only cover a combined total of 1,000 kilometres over four days. The mileage other drivers may cover is limited only by the days available to their teams.
A further tightening of the rules will prevent teams gaining an advantage by running on circuits shortly before they hold grands prix. A new clause forbids any TPC running at a track 60 days before it holds a grand prix. Teams may also not run at any circuit currently on the calendar “if the circuit is deemed, at the sole discretion of the FIA, to have undergone significant modification” since F1’s last race there.
But the FIA has also moved to prevent teams testing at circuits long absent from the calendar. Teams will not be allowed to test at any track which F1 did not visit in the current or preceding season. That means venues such as Mugello, Magny-Cours and Mugello will no longer be an option.
Historic racers will able to race newer F1 machinery after the FIA introduced a “race and significant update” to those regulations. At a stroke it has permitted cars from three decades of racing to enter competitions.
Cars from F1’s ‘turbo era’ in the eighties, and other machinery from the period 1987 to 2000, will be allowed to participate in FIA competitions for the first time. Cars from the Formula 3000 category, which existed between 1985 and 2004, will also be allowed to race.
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Asd
18th October 2024, 16:24
I would slap an F1 engine onto an F2 car and you’d have a good enough (non-)F1 car.
Oh come on…
anon
18th October 2024, 16:57
Asd, whilst the article seems to have been put together a bit sloppily, given that error sneaked through, it does raise the question of why the FIA is not allowing teams to test at tracks that haven’t been on the calendar either this year or in the previous year.
After all, venues like Magny Cours, Paul Ricard or Mugello, to name a few, all hold Grade 1 licences, meaning that the FIA have agreed they meet the safety and operational requirements to hold a Formula 1 race – the fact that most of those venues have been used recently for F1 races proves that they’re perfectly safe.
If anything, given that the FIA wants to discourage teams from using a venue within 60 days of it appearing on the calendar or if the circuit has been modified recently, given that a team might use that to their advantage, you’d have thought that the FIA would actively encourage teams to use circuits that weren’t on the calendar to make it even less likely that they might gain any sort of performance advantage.
Alesici
18th October 2024, 17:39
I can only imagine that their thinking was that with the majority of the testing being with rookie drivers, they wanted to ensure that they also got to learn tracks that they could subsequently race on. But that would be a pretty weak reason.
Firstly, learning most circuits is a pretty easy part of a top level race driver’s job. They can be 99% there within a 1 hour practice session, given a bit of sim time. Secondly, the trickier circuits to learn tend to be street circuits, which you can’t test on. Thirdly, most of the F1 calendar’s circuits you could test on are already on the F2 calendar, so the rookie would probably know them pretty well already.
So if that’s the reason, it’s a poor one. So I conclude it’s probably somehow instead about money…
Nice to see them open up racing for more historic F1 cars though.
Coventry Climax
18th October 2024, 18:34
So what’s the point? Teams gaining an advantage from testing there? If teams really think that’s an advantage, there’s nothing to stop them from doing the same as any of the other teams.
FiA is policing a non-issue once again, or they must have other reasons which they -also again- don’t want to share with us.
Ideals (@ideals)
18th October 2024, 16:29
Smart. Wouldn’t want to give those pesky rookies any real world experience driving actual F1 cars. Best have them as unprepared as possible so they can fail more in their first season and make teams even less likely to sack their experienced current driver in favor of a rookie.
Jere (@jerejj)
18th October 2024, 16:42
F1 already has more than enough rules & restrictions in place, so only introducing more is pointless & unnecessarily, especially on which circuits are allowed for the purpose based on how recently F1 has raced on them.
So what if F1 hasn’t raced on a given circuit within an ongoing season or the preceding one, absolutely zero harm & ultimately entirely irrelevant for anything, although I can understand banning unofficial testing on any circuit when its Grand Prix is nearing & or has had significant modifications since the at-the-time most recent event, given the possible pre-event advantage a team could gain by gaining data & familiarity on such circumstances.
Free_B
18th October 2024, 18:00
I continue to be amazed that the FIA places increasing restrictions on teams in the cost cap era! I would want to see the exact opposite: far less regulations with these things falling under cost cap. In other words, if the TPC is not covered under the cost car, it should be.. all testing should be, with no restrictions on time.
I’m also a fan of drivers and team management salaries being included in the cost cap, even if it means adding another (say) $100m to the cap!
Thereafter it’s up to the teams to decide how they want to spend this budgets!
Coventry Climax
19th October 2024, 11:06
Apparently the FiA thinks otherwise.
I don’t expect them to be transparent about it though, and come out with valid, plausible reasoning for it. Nor do I expect them to listen to criticism from others. At least not before satan and the lord become best friends.