The FIA has taken decisive action against drivers who jumpstart and teams who keep their cars in during rain to save tires. The relevant rules have been updated in the sports regulations.
McLaren driver Lando Norris made a jumpstart at the second race of the season in Saudi Arabia, but the Brit was not penalized for the incident afterwards. The FIA transponder on his car indicated that the car had not moved too early, even though the footage showed otherwise.
Stewards Can Now Make Their Own Judgments
With an update to the F1 regulations, stewards can now judge for themselves whether a car has started too early, even if the transponder has not registered this. The revised rule no longer states that the judgment must be made ‘by an FIA-approved and supplied transponder’, but that ‘a driver is penalized for a false start if he moves after the four-second light is on and before the start signal is given by extinguishing all red lights’.
The FIA has also added a new rule to encourage teams to drive a lot during rain training, instead of using their limited amount of intermediates. This happened, for example, during the second training for the Grand Prix of Japan at the Suzuka circuit.
A new clause has been added to discourage teams from stockpiling ‘wets’. After a wet training, a set of intermediates must be returned.
