MOTORSPORT – FORMULA One’s governing body could be making some adjustments to regulations in the coming days based on feedback received from drivers and teams during the two weekends of F1 pre-season testing in Bahrain as well as the wet tyre testing this weekend, according to a top motorsport official.
Speaking to the GDN, FIA single seater director Nikolas Tombazis highlighted the key differences being seen in cars as a result of sweeping regulations introduced this year in F1, leading to what many have termed ‘the start of a new era of F1 racing’.
“The driver comments are generally a lot more positive than they were when they were driving the simulator,” Tombazis explained during the Press roundtable.
“I think they’re getting used to it. There’s certain aspects of the cars they like. I think there’s some aspects we still need to improve, no doubt, and we are working on those with the teams and constructors.
“Every team and power unit manufacturer are still learning a lot.
“It’s still early days, and they are trying to learn how to best extract the most performance out of the car.
“The teams have better resources than we have, and how they exactly operate the car - we can’t fully predict, but I think it’s pretty close to what we were simulating.”
Tombazis acknowledged that drivers have had complaints, and noted that the FIA was surveying them after the pre-season testing which concluded last weeked at the Bahrain International Circuit.
The GDN previously reported that F1 tyre suppliers Pirelli will be holding a first-of-its-kind ‘wet test’ in Bahrain this weekend.
McLaren and Mercedes will be providing older versions of their F1 cars for the tests.
“Every year, the tyre suppliers get a certain number of days where teams volunteer to check and the test days are divided amongst the teams,” Tombazis added.
“According to the regulations, they can run one or two cars and check new tyres and new compounds, tyre constructions, etc.
“And some of these days are wet to improve and to test their wet setups.”
Tombazis also explained the differences in the cars being introduced this year, noting that the engines have a bigger proportion of electrical power and smaller proportion from combustible fuels.
Therefore, while the maximum power of the cars is significantly higher than last year, this power is not available all the time because of the load on the batteries in the car.
“So we have a range of regulations which are to do with what is called energy management, which determines how much you can use and at what instances on the track,” he explained.
“Typically you have more power at the early part of the straight, and that diminishes and reduces as you go along towards the latter part.
“In addition, we have active aerodynamics mode, which can reduce the drag significantly, so that when they have a bit less power at the end of the straight, they also have less drag, and therefore they maintain racing speed.”
He also highlighted the boost mode, a new mode at the driver’s disposal to influence his attacking or defending under certain circumstances.
The overtake mode is another set of parameters which get activated when a car gets close to a leading car, similar to the Drag Reduction System, in previous years.
In the overtake mode, cars could have more energy recovered, and more power deployed to assist in overtaking.
According to Tombazis, scrutineers will have a lot of new potential car infractions to watch out for this year, including different load tests and aerodynamic regulations.
“I think the first several races will be important, because we haven’t seen cars racing in Bahrain,” he added.
“We’ve had some driver comments, but we haven’t seen how it is on race day, and I think we’ll be analysing the situation after the first couple of races if we need to make any tweaks.”
He also highlighted new rear and side lights on cars, with different race conditions reflected on them, instead of just the red lights which have been used in previous years.
“First of all we’ve got a new specification, which means we can change the colour,” he added.
“That way we can give different messages to who’s following. That will evolve and improve over time – it’s in order to not just have a single red one.
“At the moment, they are intended to give warnings to drivers behind if there’s a recharge going on, whether there’s a sudden deceleration, and clearly there’s also the main function, the original function, which is in the rain.
“We feel that with the new specification, which can do different colours, we can provide more information to who’s behind.”
He also highlighted that the new lateral side safety lights will only come on if there is an accident or spin, so that approaching cars can see them from all angles.
“Obviously Formula One is a technical challenge,” Tombazis added.
“Life would be a lot simpler if we had, you know, a single car, for example, but that would not be F1.
“The reason we have so many big manufacturers involved is because they want to have the variation in the challenge, and that’s why teams have thousands of people working on each car.”
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