One of the pillars of credible sports disciplines, including Formula 1, is regulatory continuity throughout the event. This principle does not mean that technological evolution cannot improve the spectacle and, in some cases, ensure a better quality of the show. However, when the rules of the game are changed during the competition, the end result can be tainted by choices that can alter the balance of power.
Imagine if in football it was decided to eliminate the offside rule only in certain rounds of the championship. What credibility would the football movement offer to the fans? In Formula 1, change has always been the inevitable result of a failure of the spectacle dictated by enduring technical dominance.
Nevertheless, in the past, regulatory changes were implemented between one season and the next. Recently, the FIA and Liberty Media have been experimenting with progressive adjustments to the weekend format in a way that has never happened before. The Azerbaijan weekend was characterized by a double qualifying session to determine the grid for the sprint race and the Sunday race. In the future, another type of qualifying will be introduced, where the three segments of the session will be characterized by the use of the Hard compound in Q1, Medium in Q2, and Soft in Q3.
Before reflecting further, a clear question arises: can these measures bring more excitement to a contest with well-defined values? Limiting ourselves to the Baku test, it can be asserted that the double qualifying had no influence on the final outcome of the two races. It is reasonable to think that even the upcoming experiment, which involves using only one type of compound for each phase of qualifying, will not disrupt the field’s balance. Even over the distance of the short sprint races, the performance order of the cars is almost always easily restored.
F1: Changes to the sporting regulations mask an evident criticality.
It is now clear that the succession of changes to the sporting regulations (even one-shot changes) is the desperate measure implemented by the governing body of F1 to try and patch up a failed technical revolution in its essence. It was plausible that teams with greater resources in terms of infrastructure and know-how would continue to dominate, but the extent of Red Bull’s dominance has surprised even industry insiders.
But sometimes the patch is worse than the hole, especially if it manages to undermine the ability of those who have gained a competitive advantage over the competition. The American imprint that Liberty Media is trying to transfer to the top category of motorsport is unlikely to create the appreciable leveling seen in IndyCar, simply because the American series is a single-make championship, at least in terms of the chassis, produced by the Italian excellence Dallara.
Despite Formula 1 defining a substantial subset of standard or transferable components for customer teams, performance convergence remains a mere utopia. In this regard, it is sufficient to remember that Mercedes provides almost all of the transferable components (TRC, Ed.) to Aston Martin, similarly to what happens between Scuderia Ferrari and Haas. Nevertheless, the performance between their respective cars is significantly different, as explained by Formula 1 expert Alessandro Arcari for FUnoanalisitecnica.
The latest development is the news that Pirelli has requested the FIA’s permission to provide a new tire specification starting from the British Grand Prix. This measure is deemed indispensable by the Milanese tire manufacturer to guarantee the reliability of its products in relation to the higher performance level of the 2023 cars, exceeding the predictions of Pirelli’s engineers. These are too many changes in the eyes of knowledgeable spectators, but they probably go unnoticed by the modern customers of Formula 1.
Changes that would have been strongly opposed by teams in a balanced championship are now supported, as teams are only sensitive to change when new parties show interest in entering the exclusive world of Formula One.
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