Driver penalty points system among new 2014 rules

2014 F1 season

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The FIA has ratified a plan to introduce a penalty points system in F1 from next year.

Drivers will accrue penalty points for a range of transgressions and if they accumulate at least 12 they will be banned from one race.

Depending on the severity of the offence committed, drivers will be given one, two or three penalty points. These will remain on their license for 12 months.

The FIA also announced “the procedure for a driver to be given the chance to give back any advantage he may have gained by leaving the track has been adopted”.

The FIA has introduced two rules changes aimed at improving safety in the pit lane. The speed limit will be reduced to 80kph at races where it is currently 100kph (it is 60kph in Melbourne, Monaco and Singapore). And team’s pit crews will be required to wear head protection.

An extra set of tyres will be allocated for drivers to use during the first 30 minutes of first practice only.

Several rules changes have been implemented to account for the forthcoming change in engine regulations. Drivers may only use five complete power units during a season and will have to start from the pits if they use an extra one. Engine suppliers may provide units to up to four teams.

A maximum fuel allowance of 100kg per race will be imposed. A further 5kg has been added to the minimum weight limit. The FIA previously planned to raise this to 685kg, meaning next year’s cars must now weigh at least 690kg.

The FIA also ruled that “no manufacturer will be allowed to homologate more than one power unit during the homologation period from 2014-2020. Changes to the homologated unit will continue to be permitted for installation, reliability or cost saving reasons.”

Among the other changes to the technical rules are provisions to ensure teams use low noses, for impact protection, that are not ‘stepped’.

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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30 comments on “Driver penalty points system among new 2014 rules”

  1. Penalty points system–> picture of Maldonado.

    iseewhatyoudidthere

    1. @fer-no65 Well he did have the most penalties of any driver last year.

      1. Isn’t his reprimands and crashes connected to why we got this rule in the first place?

        This whole thing seems very short sighted :S

  2. It sucks to have the speed limit reduced to 80kmph. Too slow, with the many pitstops in modern F1 they’ll spend more time in the pits than racing each other on the track.

    1. @roald Alternatively, knowing pit stops will now take longer incentivises teams to make fewer pit stops.

      1. Zantkiller (@)
        28th June 2013, 15:50

        @keithcollantine And will make driver more worried of losing front wings.

        1. Personally I think that is splitting hairs. The slower stops will be the same for everyone, so it’s all relative. I don’t think there will be enough significance to the outcomes of races such that drivers will now be trying to preserve their front wings, like they aren’t already, and I just don’t think the tires will need to be as degrady nor will be next year such that there will be as many pitstops as this year anyway.

          1. OmarR-Pepper (@)
            28th June 2013, 18:16

            and I just don’t think the tires will need to be as degrady nor will be next year such that there will be as many pitstops as this year anyway.

            What? proofread!

          2. So sorry Mr. Perfect… I just don’t think the tires will need to be as degrady, nor will be next year, such that there will be as many pit stops as they are needing this year. Hemberey has stated that he thinks the huge change in engine/chassis packages will be enough to ‘provide the show’ or ‘shake things up’ such that Pirelli doesn’t need to make their tires as ‘fragile’ (to coin MW’s wording) to create the show.

      2. and more conservative race race strategy

  3. Any more details on the points system, i.e. how many points for which transgression?

    1. There was a full list of transgressions with the points that will be applied for them, but that was in an older article (about a month ago I think).

      1. yes, I saw those and some of them were a bit strange. So I was wondering whether they changed that.

        1. This is a bad idea as it will take away stewards’ ability to make common sense decisions.

          Apparently if this system was used in 2012 Grosjean wouldn’t have received a race ban, even that was an entirely fitting punishment. Says it all.

  4. Is FIA good enough to hand out consistent penalty???

    1. a winner question. That´s the problema I see whit this.

      Are we gonna have profesional stewards in the races?

      This gonna call for some mayor troubles and complaints…

    2. Probably not but I think most transgressions will be fairly obvious and it will only come down to a few players who are regular committers of transgressions that need to worry about accumulating points anyway (Grosjean and Maldonado seem to stand out lately). I also think that incidents will be judged as to their level of seriousness by what the driver’s say when asked questions about the incident by the stewards. eg. one driver blocks another…if the blocker says yeah I really didn’t see him and I really regret ruining his practice/quali/race because I sure didn’t mean to, is different from the blocker saying well he did it to me so fair’s fair right?

  5. The FIA also ruled that “no manufacturer will be allowed to homologate more than one power unit during the homologation period from 2014-2020. Changes to the homologated unit will continue to be permitted for installation, reliability or cost saving reasons.”

    I have seen reports coming from German press, that Renault lobbied to allow them to have several units (with Infiniti doing a significant part of the hybrid portion of the Red Bull drivetrain) while Mercedes lobbied to get the rule that was now ratified by the FIA to ensure all teams supplied by with an engine get an equal unit.

  6. The FIA also ruled that “no manufacturer will be allowed to homologate more than one power unit during the homologation period from 2014-2020. Changes to the homologated unit will continue to be permitted for installation, reliability or cost saving reasons.”

    Does that… mean… a 6-years freeze period???

    1. I don’t think so, my educated guess is they are allowed to make changed up to 2017 (I think that was the year mentioned by the FIA), but not introduce a completely new model or an alternative one. (Think about the 90s and Ford engines; Zetec, etc.)

  7. If a driver gets his total of 12 points in the last race?
    If they were to be carried to next season then grosejan would have to sit out 1 full season in few years .
    ;)

    1. Zantkiller (@)
      28th June 2013, 17:17

      @svarun It would be ridiculous but couldn’t they show him the black flag and tell him to come in?

      How mad would that be if a driver on 11 points does something like speeding in the pitlane and gets disqualified.

    2. The points stay on your licence for a year, not till the end of the season. So 12 points in the last race means you sit out the first race of the next season.

  8. Drivers may only use five complete power units during a season and will have to start from the pits if they use an extra one

    Seems like a strange penalty, isn’t it currently a 10 place grid drop?

  9. Points system is just stupid!

    1. @5150 – Any particular reason why you feel that way?

      When this was first announced, a lot of people made the mistake of thinking that drivers would lose championship points for various driving infractions, which isn’t the case at all. Rather, it works exactly the same as your road licence: demerit points are added to your licence for speeding and drink driving and driving without a seatbelt, and if you build up too many of them, you lose your licence. Here, drivers get demerit points added to their racing licences for causing avoidable accidents and the like, and when they get too many of them, they get a one-race ban (plus an automatic five points added to their licence on their return, as a kind of probation – it will take them less to get their second ban).

      1. Well, I feel there’s no need for this, since current penalties are apropriate. They just need to implement them, and implement them consistently. I believe that penalty points sistem won’t bring anything good to F1.
        I am afraid that sometime in the future the FIA will put direction indicators on the cars, so the driver behind will have to signal when and on which side overtaking will take place. I am joking, but we’re heading that way.

  10. Wonder if they’ll be able to pay a higher fine and sit through a 4 hour speeding in the pitlane awareness course to avoid the points?

  11. “no manufacturer will be allowed to homologate more than one power unit during the homologation period from 2014-2020″

    No engine development for 6 years. I hate that. That’s not Formula One.

    1. If this is the case we could see one manufacturer getting it right and some team dominating the next 6 seasons? Please not…. ENOUGH OF THAT.

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