WMSC approves standing restarts and further cost cutting
Formula One will adopt standing restarts as of the 2015 season, today's World Motorsport Council has agreed in Munich. Along with improvements for the show, further regulation changes were approved to reduce costs for teams in the near future.
The standing restarts, as reported earlier, as designed to increase overtaking opportunities in case of a safety car. Standing starts will not be carried out if the Safety Car is used within two laps of the start (or restart) of a race or if there are less than five laps of the race remaining.
With a budget cap still not agreed and possibly off the table at the moment, the WMSC ratified other proposals to limit the spending in F1.
This means that as of 2015, technical regulations for the next year can only be changed until 1 March, contrary to 30 June. This should help teams plan their programmes and reduce costs to redesign early concepts.
The number of allowed power units per car will also be reduced from 5 this year to 4 next year. The limit of 5 unit per season however is retained in seasons that contain more than 20 races. The penalty for a complete change of Power Unit will be starting from the back of the grid, not the pit lane.
A further reduction of wind tunnel time is also approved. Wind tunnel runs will be reduced from 80 hours per week to 65 hours per week with wind-on hours reduced from 30 hours per week to 25 hours. Different to what is currently allowed, teams will also only be allowed to use one single wind tunnel in one year, meaning they are locked in for an entire season, even if accuracy is found to be insufficient.
Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) usage is also to be reduced from 30 Teraflops to 25 Teraflops.
Testing is also part of the cutting with three pre-season tests of four days each in Europe in 2015 (currently teams are able to test outside Europe). This will be reduced to two tests of four days in 2016.
There will be two in-season tests of two days each in Europe (instead of the current four). Two of these four days must be reserved for young drivers.
Parc fermé will also apply from the start of P3 instead of the start of qualifying whereas the personnel curfew will be extended from the current 6 hours to 7 next year and 8 hours from 2016 on.
The proposal to ban tyre blankets to heat the tyres in the pitlane has been discarded but "will be re-discussed if and when the wheel and tyre diameter increases in the future".
Finally, several technical regulation changes have been approved, including an attempt to "ensure improved safety and to provide more aesthetically pleasing structures".
A number of new regulations concerning skid blocks to ensure that they are made from a lighter material (titanium) and are better contained.
New regulations to ensure that the brake discs rotate at the same speed as the wheels while a two-stage wheel fastener retaining system has been made mandatory.
