Drivers divided on team radio limitations
The Singapore Grand Prix will be the first with a limit on team radio communications, and that change got drivers talking. Some though are more worried than others.
Sebastian Vettel pinpointed the limitations, apparently an idea of Bernie Ecclestone, at least so he claims, may be particularly tricky in combination with management of the complex power trains and energy recovery systems currently on F1 cars.
"There's a lot of stuff that has to be managed from the outside with the car being so complicated now", Vettel said.
"We try to monitor what the car is up to and we get a lot of instructions based on what the engineers see and what we need to do to keep the car running, managing the different components; that could be interesting this weekend."
"Without help from outside you don't know what is going on, you need to make sure that you leave plenty of margin and as I said I think the main difficulty is not stuff like the fuel as there it's fairly simple to put a target up and follow, but in terms of managing the components and how they work with each other will be difficult for us, as we have to drive the car. It's not as simple as managing KERS in the past, if that was the case then the radio ban is not problem but it could be if you have to manage the state of charge throughout the whole race and you don't know what's going on – that's why we have so many people in the garage, if they weren't necessary we wouldn't bring them out here. They have a job to do and naturally you can imagine that it's difficult to leave it for us to do everything that they do, so it will be quite interesting."
Fellow former F1 world champion Kimi Raikkonen, notorious for being silent in the car, said it may indeed complicate things.
"Well, obviously we don’t speak a lot on the radio in my case usually, when there are no issues – but obviously it might get quite complicated if there are some problems with the car and you have to change certain things to try to finish the race. I don’t know how the rule goes at those times. Obviously it makes it more complicated for us but it’s part of the game so it’s OK.
Younger drivers like Marcus Ericsson and Jean-Eric Vergne proved to be less impressed.
"I like the idea, to be honest", Ericsson said. "I think it’s good to get the drivers more in focus. I think it’s good. But for us as a small team I think it’s a bit more trickier because our steering wheel, we don’t have a big display. A lot of the other teams, I think they have a big display, so they can show a lot of stuff on this, whereas we have a very small one. So it’ll be a bit more tricky – but yeah, like I said, I like the idea and I think it’s good to make us drivers a bit more in focus.
Vergne added: "I don’t mind it. I think it will be more or less the same as before. I like to do things by my own and many times this year I changed the settings before my engineer told me, so yeah, I will be a bit more lonely on the radio – but it should be fine.
Adrian Sutil also mentioned it would be a bit more work, but manageable nonethless. Lotus driver Pastor Maldonado agreed.
Following the FIA's initial push earlier this week, it is understood that some limitations have been alleviated again following safety worries. However, the status of brakes or orders for engine settings are limited and may trigger penalties. Similarly, coded messages and pit board signals to attempt to still pass such messages to the drivers will be forbidden as well.
Combined, the rules are meant to make the sport more natural for the viewers. Ecclestone, who on Thursday at Singapore claimed to be the initiator of the ban, insists further limitations may come into force, including a possible ban on live telemetry.
