New Formula 1 Rules: Politics Before Clarity

Bernie, Max and the FIA have announced a whole load of new rules and directives this week that have received a lot of coverage. Primary among these is the new winner takes all system for deciding the championship and the £30 million budget cap to be introduced next year, though a lot of the more intricate rules regarding media responsibilities have gone uncovered. First, though, let’s deal with the big stuff.

Winner takes all…

My main problem with this idea is its implementation. Unlike the F1 of old and every other racing formula I can think of, F1 will now have a mixed system where the drivers’ championship will be decided by wins (or points if tied), but the rest of the positions and the Constructors’ Championship will be decided on points with wins being irrelevant. This strikes me as needlessly complicated and contradictory. If the FIA wants to make F1 more accessible to the public then it’s going the wrong way about it.

Drivers also seem unimpressed or, at the very least, unconvinced.

Nico Rosberg was particularly dismissive simply saying “What nonsense is this?”. Jenson Button queried the sense of a system where a driver could win the championship halfway through the season – a view echoed by many fans and pundits. Fernando Alonso, meanwhile, spoke at length about his concerns that the large number of rule changes would only confuse fans.

Despite some serious reservations I’m willing to see how it plays out, but Bernie’s assertion that races will suddenly become more exciting seems amazingly naive to me. No matter how valuable a win is, if the leader is 20 seconds ahead with 10 laps to go no amount of motivation is likely to change the result. There’s also the thorny issue of officialdom to deal with, which leads us onto…

£30 million budget cap in 2010

Don’t be fooled. It’s unlikely in the extreme that this will be the cap in 2010. That there will be one is without doubt, but Mosley has set this deliberately low so as to give him room to compromise. This has always been his way.

That this figure is unacceptably low is without doubt, but were it to shift closer to £50 or £60 million then that would seem to make more sense. If this allowed the teams to do what they liked, avoiding too much regulation of design and so forth, it might actually work out for the better. Quite whether the FIA is capable of policing this is another matter. Given its track record there’s little evidence for optimism.

However it works out the blatant political nature of the decisions continue to be an irritating distraction. Fears of manufacturers leaving may be justified, but aggravating them hardly seems sensible.

New media rules

On the plus side the new rules governing drivers and teams and their obligations are very welcome. These include:

• For greater clarity for spectators and media, wet tyres have been renamed “intermediate” and extreme-weather tyres renamed “wet”.
• On the first day of practice all drivers must be available for autograph signing in their designated team space in the pit lane.
• All drivers eliminated in qualifying must make themselves available for media interviews immediately after the end of each session.
• Any driver retiring before the end of the race must make himself available for media interviews after his return to the paddock.
• All drivers who finish the race outside the top three must make themselves available immediately after the end of the race for media interviews.
• During the race every team must make at least one senior spokesperson available for interviews by officially accredited TV crews. 

These are the kind of things the sport has needed for a long time and all team radios will be open now, so we’ll finally hear form McLaren and Ferrari during races.

Despite all the usual bullshit, though, we could well be in for a great season. Many of the teams seem well matched and Brawn GP’s success in testing has been great. As a Jenson Button fan it’s particularly exciting to see him in with a chance of racing at the right end of the field for first time in a while. It’s long overdue.