FIA approves push for further standard-part tenders in F1 for 2021. FIA approves push for further standard-part tenders in F1 for 2021.

The FIA has underlined its push for standard parts in Formula 1 from 2021 after the World Motor Sport Council approved the issuing of further invitations to tender. Last month, the FIA asked for interested parties to bid on the supply of a standard gearbox cassette to be used by all teams from 2021-24. Thursday’s WMSC meeting approved further initiatives, although no details have been given regarding what areas of the car or powerunit might be covered.

An FIA statement simply noted “the council approved the launch of a series of tenders within the context of the ongoing development of the 2021 technical regulations”. The FIA has been working closely with the F1 organisation to shape the 2021 rules package, and standard parts – focussing on areas of less interest to fans – is a major element.

Standardising more parts would crossover with plans to reduce costs, and should help close up the field:

“We need to close up the differential between the car in terms of overall performance,” said F1 sporting boss Ross Brawn – “We’ve got a division one and division two at the moment, and we need to stop that, we need to have a much closer performance gap between the teams, and the cost control will be part of that, the regulations that are evolving will be part of that. There’s technology that should be exciting and fascinating for the fans, yet every team builds its own fire extinguisher because they want to try and make their fire extinguisher a bit lighter than somebody else’s fire extinguisher. Nobody is interested in that. That doesn’t turn anyone on. But if you’ve got the money to put into the fire extinguisher, you can probably make one a bit lighter than someone else, and where the teams have the resources, and the money, and the budget, they can do those things. And then they get just a fraction of a second advantage there, and a fraction there, a fraction there. Before you know it, they’re a second ahead, and the competition is poor. So we have to have cars which are close to each other, and when they’re close to each other we have to have them behave in a way that they can race each other.” – he concluded.