More customer parts and tyre warmer ban in 2015

2015 F1 season

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The FIA will permit teams to purchase more car parts in 2015 under new rules proposed today.

Teams will no longer have to design and manufacture their own suspension components and brake ducts if the proposed rule is accept by the F1 Commission.

The FIA also intends to outlaw tyre heating devices for 2015. Tyre warmers are already banned in many other single-seater racing series, such as IndyCar.

A further rise in the minimum weight limit is also planned for next year, bringing it up to 701kg.

The sport’s governing body also proposed a new rule on safety grounds, starting: “the front part of the chassis will not be able to climb too steeply rearward of the front of the chassis”.

The FIA’s plan to introduce cost control regulations was also advanced with teams agreeing unanimously to prepare draft regulations to go before the World Motor Sport Council in June.

2015 F1 season


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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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48 comments on “More customer parts and tyre warmer ban in 2015”

  1. Heading more towards a spec series every day, but the weight rise is welcome..

    1. @vonhoff – Is the way it has been implemented necessarily a bad thing? Suspension components and brake ducts are not performance-enhancing parts. They might offer some gain, but the overall effect is negligible. By allowing smaller teams to buy these parts, the FIA wil hopefully keep costs down. And so long as the ability to develop their own chassis and aerodynamic parts is kept intact, most people will not care.

      1. I think the worry is more about this being the thin end of the wedge rather than about the specific parts being purchasable in this instance. I think it’s the precedent that @vonhoff is alluding to.

  2. Will teams be able to purchase a “launch nose”? And front wing designs they’re never going to race?
    That would save some money to help pay the entry fees.

    1. How does this work? Genuinely as not heard about this sort of thing before

  3. Also, no tyre warmers ? Sounds like a stupid idea. Wasnt the tyre temperature (or lack of it) an issue in Senna’s death ? (IIRC, the tyre temperature had dropped behind the safety car)

    1. Practically every other racing category runs without tyre warmers without any safety issues at all & that included CART when it had over 900bhp.

      Yes cold tyres/low pressures contributed to Senna’s accident, However back then the cars had flat bottoms & it was the bottoming out that caused the crash.
      The plant fitted under every car in Mid-94 was fitted to raise the ride height in order to prevent the cars bottoming out badly enough to cause a big downforce loss.

      1. The plant fitted

        Should read the Plank fitted.

        1. LOL I was wondering what kind of plants they were using? Maybe bamboo? :)

      2. Actually probably it was the broken steering wheel column!

      3. I can’t believe the silly cold tyre and bottoming out theory regarding Senna’s death is still going around. Haven’t you watched mid 80s-mid 90s F1? If you think Senna’s last lap showed a lot of bottoming, see some other races. There should have been pile-ups on every lap of every race, if bottoming-out contributed to loss of downforce. Not to mention that lowest part of the cars was actually called “skid plate”

        And just because cars were raised, it doesn’t mean bottoming out was dangerous. Cars were made narrower, with smaller wings, with smaller and grooved tyres, and that makes the cars handle worse, not better. But it makes them slower. Slower cars, plus more regulation (like minimum ride height) became part of the formula. And the plank is made out of wood exactly to measure ride height, not to “prevent bottoming”.

      4. Even Newey recently admitted Senna’s tyres couldn’t have been cold. And if they were, there would have been a completely different car behavior, and behavior from Senna.
        And cold tires would have affected everyone. Everyone took Tamburello flat-out. But then again, were the tires cold, the drivers would have had a problem on the tricky parts of the track, like the chicanes and sharp and slow corners, not at Tamburello

    2. @vonhoff it wasn’t. I remember a documentary at Discovery Channel citing that as a possible explanation, but he had done a full speed race lap before his accident after the Safety Car. I highly doubt the tyres were low in temperature.

      Also, a driver like Senna would’ve noticed…

    3. Go take a look at “thesennafiles” grim reading :(

  4. OK, I’m having trouble parsing this sentence, can someone help me out:
    “the front part of the chassis will not be able to climb too steeply rearward of the front of the chassis”

    That sounds very open to interpretation.

    1. Probably a misprint. Would make sense if the first mention of the word “chassis” was replaced by the word “nose”. If it’s not a misprint it is a very confusing description. Wait! It’s F1!

      Fixed it myself.

      1. I got confused by this bit

        draft regulations

        I don’t think there should be an ‘r’ in the first word.

        1. +1… LMHO

  5. Over 700 kg is harly a formula car anymore… They should get more eco-friendly by removing weight. Not adding more and more to include useless tech that doesn’t do anything to improve the sport.

    1. People keep talking about the ‘relevancy’ of F1. Yet road car are at this point finally getting lighter or having their weight stabilise as new models are released.

    2. Yep, 701 kg is really a lot. I hope the power of the engines will have increased by 2015 so that there isn’t much difference in lap times.

      1. have you seen the test lap times? only 3 seconds of last years pole!!
        hardly slow since the engines and cars are still in testing mode,
        even if it turns out to be 3 seconds a lap, its not going to make a major diffrence adding only 2.30- 3:30 minutes to a race!!!

  6. At last, some good news on the rule change front! The ban on tyre warmers is long overdue. For me, they should’ve been thrown out with traction control, which was also something that made it easier for the drivers while adding nothing to the show.

    1. petebaldwin (@)
      24th January 2014, 12:00

      +1 F1 is too easy and that is why pay drivers are such an attractive option.

      If pay drivers were struggling to keep the car on the track, you’d go for someone with ability. As it stands, you’ve got your top drivers (Alonso, Hamlton, Vettel, Kimi) who are faster than the rest. You’ve then got your middle drivers who are probably only a little bit faster than your drivers who are only in the sport because of their sponsorship packages. If you increase the difficulty of F1, you increase the gaps between the good and the bad and you make the pay driver solution less attractive.

      If you put Hamilton/Alonso/Kimi/Vettel in a 1992 F1 car and set them loose around Monaco, they certainly wouldn’t be far off the pace of Senna, Mansell etc. If you put Chilton in a 1992 F1 car and set him loose around Monaco, he wouldn’t make it as far as Mirabeau before he put it in the wall yet in 2014, he finshed every race.

      1. put Hamilton/Alonso/Kimi/Vettel in the cars prost and senna were fighting each other with in the late 80’s eairly 90’s and sorry if they looned it round like senna and prost they would put it in a wall as quick as you claim chilton would.
        i can agree on some aspects on this years cars, you will find the new guys struggling while the oldskool guys (and dont write button off) will do very well,

        but the reason why is different era,diffrent car, and the way it drives
        just like senna would if he tried the same thing of a car 20 years before him!
        thus why guys like brabham, moss and mclearn were such heros,
        and also why senna and prost and likes were,
        because different era just as dangerous if not more so in the 60’s
        nowadays f1s cars are “easier” to drive. spesh though the late 90’s which driver aids.
        which is why guys like schumacher made mince meat of the others. but shockingly bad in todays cars!

  7. I’d love somebody to explain why banning tire warmers is a good thing.

    * It means next to nothing in terms of monetary savings: The teams all own the gear already, I can’t believe tire warmers have a high failure rate or rapidly evolving technology, a tire warmer is not a complicated thing so (by F1 standards) likely costs next to nothing anyway, and even the power consumption is likely peanuts.

    * It doesn’t measurably improve the racing. Tires will still be up to temperature within a lap or less, teams on similar strategy will have cold tires at approximately the same time as each other, and teams on different strategy aren’t directly racing each other on track, so will merely face equal disadvantage to each other.

    * It will also noticeably reduce tire life, because at the start of the race the drivers will be forced to do even more burnouts and weaving to get heat into the tires for the start, meaning even shorter first stints on what, thanks to Pirelli, are already soft-boiled-egg tires.

    * It does measurably reduce safety, because an off or collision is more likely when you are on cold tires and lack grip. (And that includes lacking grip to slow down before you hit the barriers.) This is especially true at the first corner of the race. And it also means more violent maneuvers on the formation lap, which again increases the risk of a crash.

    I predict the only thing this rule change will mean is more formation lap and first corner retirements, more race restarts or initial laps run under the safety car, more retirements immediately after pit stops, more risk of somebody (driver, marshal, or spectator) being hurt, and… nothing else. No improvement in racing, no savings in money.

    So what is the point? Why is this such a clever idea?

    1. GP2 drivers manage fine without tyre warmers.

      If there’s a spike in crashes it doesn’t bode well for the quality and\or reputation of the drivers concerned.

    2. I’m having the same trouble working that change out. I remember in 2008 they wanted to ban tyre warmers aswell, and Coulthard argued that it was not safe. But seeing other categories run well without tyre warmers, I can only assume it’s about cost.

      1. @fer-no65 Indeed, costs have to be the main reason here, knoxploration incorrectly said “even the power consumption is likely peanuts”, well what if we make an educated guess here?

        Let’s do a conservative estimation, a single tyre mantained at around 100°C must easily use over 1 kWh of energy (what a small iron would use), now multiply that by 4 (a single set), then by 19 (12 dry sets and 7 wets), then by 2 (cars per team), then by 11 teams and you get around 1.67 MW (mega watts) total each hour!!!
        If they turn them on 1 hour before and during the sessions then there must be a power consumption (or should I say waste) of 28 MW over the whole race weekend!!!

        Now, electricity can be cheap or expensive depending on the country but for me it doesn’t matter, it’s the fact that all this waste goes against this “green” F1 nonsense they’re trying to sell us.

        1. While i appreciate the effort of trying to estimate electricity usage, i would think only the set about to be used would be heated on each car, certainly not all 19 sets anyway ;)

          Even at 28MWh over the weekend, that’s only around £4,200 (at 15p/kWh) between all the teams. I think it’s more about perception of being environmentally conscious than actual costs in this case. Either way, as others have said, other series’ manage so i think the drivers should be able to deal with it.

    3. People keep posting that other formula/series cars don’t use tyre warmers, but other formula/series don’t have the same cornering forces that F1 does.
      The budget cutting is stifling F1 technology to the point of ridicule.

    4. petebaldwin (@)
      24th January 2014, 11:21

      I think it’s a good thing. To answer your points in order:

      I don’t think it has anything to do with saving money. I suppose for new teams entering, it will save a small amount but I doubt that’s the goal.

      I think it will improve the racing in some respects. If you come out of the pits, you have to get your tyres up to temperature. Strategy will become more difficult as the window for pitting and keeping your position will be much smaller and driving will be more difficult as you will have to drive with less grip for a lap. If you pit early, you will get to attack cars on cold tyres but yours will go off earlier. If you pit late, you will have to try and hold on to your position. It will create more passing oppertunities. As for the start – they’ll have more grip than when they start in the wet.

      Reducing tyre life isn’t a problem when it’s done in a non artificial way. If anything, tyre warmers are artifically increasing tyre life. Pirelli have already said they will be going with durable tyres so this shouldn’t be an issue. It also creates another variable. Do you come out of the pits and take it easy for a lap to give you another 5 laps worth of tyres or do you gun it from the start to gain track position?

      If they are unable to drive on cold tyres, they should certainly not drive in the wet, in FP1 on tracks not used for a year or on tyres older than 20 laps. Are the regulations this year unsafe because of a reduction in downforce? The drivers aren’t going to suddenly lose grip like the previous tyres where they “went off the cliff” – they will know that new cold tyres will need to be warmed up and should drive accordingly. I love seeing a set of F1 cars that aren’t on “rails”.

      To address your final point – F1 is for the best drivers in the world. Removing tyre warmers certainly make F1 cars more difficult to drive but I fail to see how that is a bad thing. F1 is becoming increasingly easy to a stage where in a good enough car, any reasonable driver could finsh in the points. Perhaps by removing downforce and banning tyre warmers and traction control etc, F1 is moving back towards the better times when a good driver is more important than a good car.

      Don’t get me wrong, safety is paramount and I’m happy that the cars are exceedingly safe, as are the tracks. Having said that, I want cars that only the very best drivers in the world can handle. Look back at onboards of Senna’s era driving around Monaco and you’ll see proper driving. Watch an onboard of Vettel and it just all looks far too easy for me.

      1. +1 to all your points,
        i think its not a cost point, its a fact of stragigic moving.
        like you say, itll be all to easy to spin cold tyres. meaning you really REALLY have to pick you moment correctly. dont forget every drier will have a set of cold tyres from start, and then twice or 3 times during the race.

        it defo spices things up. if only f1 was like gp2 but with the sound and power.
        all things equal. im very sure thats the way things are heading

  8. The constant weight increase is a bad thing. Compared to 10 years ago the weight of the cars has increased by about 100 kilo’s and the engines are a lot less powerfull. If this continues then Formula 1 cars will only be a fraction faster than Gp2 cars and that’s not how it should be. F1 should be the absolute pinnacle of motorsport with speeds that go well over 320kp/h. These days we have KERS and DRS and still the speeds don’t come near to what it used to be in the early 2000’s. Cars shouldn’t be restricted by tyres, fuel and rev-limiters, they should be pushed to the absolute limit of what is possible. That, in my opinion, is what Formula 1 is all about: Cars and drivers pushing at their absolute limit

    1. @jlracing I have the same feeling. But when teams are struggling to survive, then there must be a compromise… also, motorsport is changing from “getting the best out of the best” to “getting the best out of what we have”. This is specially true considering that nowadays the idea is to consume as little resources as possible and get the most out of them in road cars and other bits of technology.

      So the phylosophy is changing, along with the costs to run such cars…

      We’re in the middle of something, right in the edge of past and future, I suppose. Those are always tricky times.

    2. The weight increase will lengthen braking distances and (in theory) potential for overtaking.

    3. @jlracing: While I agree that the weight limit should come down, I disagree about speeds going up. I used to think that F1 cars should get faster and faster, but it was explained to me that that becomes impractical on safety grounds: the faster the cars go, the more runoff and other safety features the circuits need, all of which cost money and push the spectators further from the track. And you end up with circuits which can’t be used for much apart from F1, as they’re so bland at lower speeds.

      A case in point is Brands Hatch: a few years ago (like, 15 or so) there was talk of upgrading the track to F1 standards, but the changes which were discussed would have ruined the character of the circuit and made it too expensive for the club-level racing which is its bread and butter.

    4. petebaldwin (@)
      24th January 2014, 11:39

      @jlracing – I completely agree with the last sentence. Frankly, it adds to my point above about tyre warmers. These days, a slight bit of oversteer is accompanied by a “WOAHH!!!” from the commentators. That used to be common place because the cars were on the absolute limit of what they could do as were the drivers.

      With the weight limit, whilst I agree with the general concept that they should weigh as little as possible, and hsould be as fast as possible, I do think that a slight increase to allow fairness to drivers who are taller should be made. F1 should be about your ability as a driver, not your height.

    5. I couldn’t have said that better myself.

  9. I’m expecting Red Bull to come up with something really innovative like brake warmers which just happen to warm up the tyres as well :)
    That’s what I’d do

  10. Ditching the tire warmers doesn’t seem like a big deal to me, and I’ve never really understood the need for them anyway. Drivers adjust to, and cope with the equipment they are given. Tires a bit slippery for a lap or two? These guys are supposed to be the best. They’ll get used to it.

  11. If anything, the bigger teams will just throw more money at coming up with a creative solution to keep the tyres a bit warmer in the garage…

    Counterproductive ruling by the FIA as always *slow claps*

  12. As i understand it you’ll have the option to buy suspention parts and brack ducts but can develop your own if tou want.Or?

  13. While it’s not as big a loss and the whining on this site would suggest… I will miss tyre warmers. Not for the ludicrous claims it will have a massive impact on safety or save squillions of dollars of electricity, but simply because the excitement of the race grows exponentially when one see’s the tyre warmers coming off, as the cars wait to pull off on the formation lap..

    Also, as for the weight increase.. I would like to see the weigh of the cars come down, and I feel they should be lighter and could well be a fair chunk lighter.. Although that weight reduction won’t exactly go hand in hand with cost reduction/capping plans. So it seems for the time being at least, the weight will continue to go up.

    1. I agree completely on the tyre warmers thing.

      It just won’t be the same seeing mechanics carrying bare tyres around the place, putting them on in qualifying, etc.

  14. “the front part of the chassis will not be able to climb too steeply rearward of the front of the chassis”
    What is this suppose to mean?

  15. as engine complexity with generators, batteries, etc increases then weight must go up. These cars are carbon fibre masterpieces of construction already, weighing as little as possible already almost regardless of cost……the engine rules have added the weight.
    Road cars have decreased recently due to application of well known engineering techniques and materials previously not used in mass produced vehicles, but are still well above similar vehicles of 20 or 30 years ago because of safety rules, and more power assistance (windows, steering, etc)

  16. Tyre warmers out is great but i don’t like the suspension thing. We are getting too close to spec series this way.
    I think it would be better if rule about wheel-nuts and spec pistols etc in the garage for tyre changes was made. That can save a few bucks and it doesn’t affect racing in the least. Small teams also want lose so much on pit stops because big teams had the time to throw a few millions on some super extra special wheel nut that can come out faster.

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