With the newest October assembly of the FIA’s World Motor Sport Council, Formulation 1’s rule makers have revealed their newest draft of the sporting rules that can govern the 2025 version of the world championship.
Though the WMSC seems to have responded to latest controversy over the quickest lap bonus level by eradicating it fully from the rulebook for subsequent season, there’s one space of the rules that has remained noticeably untouched: the rule that permits drivers to vary tyres underneath a purple flag.
Regardless of current within the rules for many years, the liberty of groups to vary tyres when races are suspended has been a contentious one amongst drivers and followers through the years. The 2011 Monaco Grand Prix was one of many first instances the rule confronted severe criticism.
The ultimate act of that race was shaping as much as be a tense and thrilling conclusion to rival that of the well-known 1992 end between Ayrton Senna and Nigel Mansell. With underneath 20 laps remaining, Sebastian Vettel – who had assumed the lead from Jenson Button by staying out underneath a mid-race Security Automotive – was main the race on tyres nearing 50 laps previous.
However behind him, Fernando Alonso within the Ferrari had closed inside DRS vary having pitted underneath the Security Automotive, whereas Jenson Button was closing on the pair of them after making a second cease underneath inexperienced flag circumstances.
With 15 laps remaining, the highest three had been coated by lower than a second. Vettel was clearly struggling, along with his tyres visibly in a poor situation and having to defend from Alonso into Sainte Dedicate with each lap. The ultimate laps of the race promised to be intense.
Then a multi-car collision involving Lewis Hamilton, Adrian Sutil, Vitaly Petrov and Jaime Alguersuari on the Swimming Pool part introduced out the purple flags. The race was finally restarted, however because of the freedom allowed underneath the rules, Pink Bull had been capable of match new tyres onto Vettel’s race-leading automotive.
At a stroke, the strain evaporated. Vettel simply held off Alonso and Button on the restart to take his fifth win within the first six races – a lot to the frustration of followers who had been trying ahead to an epic end.
On the time, even BBC commentators Martin Brundle and David Coulthard had been caught unexpectedly that the rules allowed Pink Bull to vary their tyres underneath purple flag. A significant rule change launched for the 2007 season compelled each driver to run each compounds of tyre for at the least one lap through the race and the flexibility to vary tyres underneath a purple flag probably provided a free pit cease and a serious benefit to drivers who had a purple flag seem at an opportune second of the race.
Maybe the final word instance of how the flexibility to vary tyres underneath purple flag can remodel the dynamic of a race got here throughout this yr’s Monaco Grand Prix. After an enormous crash at the beginning between Sergio Perez, Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hulkenberg, the race was stopped earlier than the top of the opening lap. That allowed everybody within the subject to vary tyres, fulfilling their two-compound obligation, leading to a pedestrian and uneventful 77-lap finish to the race with zero modifications of place inside the highest ten.
After what many thought-about probably the most processional grand prix in historical past, F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali insisted the foundations could be modified.
“This yr we’ve a purple flag on the primary lap and everybody has routinely made their pit cease,” he mentioned. “We should not let that occur once more. We should anticipate such eventualities higher and canopy them with the foundations.”
Six months on the rule is a speaking level as soon as once more following final weekend’s race. A dejected Lando Norris complained three of his rivals, together with championship chief Max Verstappen “acquired fortunate” due to “a rule that nobody agrees with.”
However the rule isn’t going to vary any time quickly. The FIA’s first draft of F1’s 2025 rules nonetheless permits groups to “change wheels and tyres” if a race is suspended, amongst different restricted work they will do on their vehicles, underneath article 57.4 b) vii).
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By permitting F1 groups the freedom to vary tyres underneath a purple flag, the world championship is in direct distinction with different main motorsports sequence similar to IndyCar.
At any time when a race is suspended in IndyCar – formally often known as a ‘purple situation’ within the sequence’ rulebook – the race is handled as whether it is ‘paused’ from the second the purple flag comes out. Groups are instantly banned from doing any form of work on their vehicles underneath a purple flag, together with altering tyres. Officers file the bar codes of the tyre set on every driver’s automotive to make sure that they don’t seem to be modified, which they’re solely permitted to do when the pit lane is formally opened once more as soon as the race has resumed behind the Security Automotive.
So, many would ask, why doesn’t the FIA merely delete the road within the rules permitting groups to vary tyres underneath a purple flag? As a result of, naturally, nothing is ever that easy in Formulation 1.
There are a number of apparent arguments why F1 ought to comply with IndyCar’s lead. First, Norris’s level that the ‘free pit cease’ basically palms a serious benefit to those that haven’t pitted earlier than a purple flag is appropriate. It may be laborious to swallow when a driver is handed a place they haven’t ‘earned’ and even lose one they deserve as a result of the fickle hand of destiny dealt them a purple flag they may not have foreseen.
It additionally undermines F1’s ‘two-compound’ rule. Though F1 technically doesn’t have a obligatory pit cease underneath its rules, the two-compound rule means there’s successfully a obligatory pit cease for all intents and functions. There are solely two attainable methods for groups to fulfill the compound requirement in dry races: both by pitting their vehicles through the race to vary onto a unique compound at a pit cease, or by getting to vary their tyres for free of charge throughout a purple flag. The previous prices a driver round 25 seconds in race time to do. The latter prices nothing.
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However there are different the explanation why the rule written as it’s could also be one of the best and most sensible strategy. Crucial issue to think about in a debate like this, in fact, is security. A purple flag is finally a matter of security – actually stopping the race is probably the most drastic motion that the race director can take and is mostly used within the occasion of a serious accident or harmful state of affairs on monitor.
Usually within the occasion of a race suspension, many vehicles could have pushed by the scene of a severe crash and picked up particles and even tyre harm in consequence, even when they weren’t instantly concerned within the accident themselves. Permitting all drivers to have new tyres fitted ensures that there’s zero threat to them when the race restarts and in addition prevents any groups from taking a threat by conserving their driver out on tyres that might be minimize or broken to attempt to acquire a bonus.
Though removed from supreme, permitting tyres to be modified underneath a purple flag ensures that each one individuals who take the restart can successfully achieve this on an equal footing to one another. With it nearly sure that each driver restarting can have fulfilled their two-compound requirement, it means the remaining laps can merely be a straight dash to the end, the place it’s as much as the drivers to discover a technique to get round on monitor in the event that they wish to acquire any positions – very similar to how racing is meant to be.
Whereas the rule can undermine technique fully and lead to ‘snakes and ladders’ outcomes that arbitrarily reward or punish drivers indiscriminately, it’s removed from the one unfair aspect in Formulation 1. Mechanical issues, collisions, penalties outdoors of the driving force’s management and even climate modifications can all remodel a driver’s fortunes a technique or one other. That’s the nature of motorsport. So, one may argue, why ought to the chance of a purple flag be handled any in another way?
The FIA may amend the rules in order that any tyre modifications underneath a purple flag merely don’t ‘depend’ in the direction of the two-compound requirement. In doing that, they might successfully be including a obligatory pit cease to grands prix, compelling them to make at the least one cease underneath inexperienced flag circumstances and that means any tyres modifications underneath a purple flag won’t ‘depend’ in the direction of their obligation.
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However whereas that solves the issue of drivers getting a free pit cease underneath a purple flag, it additionally creates potential new ones. What if a purple flag known as simply earlier than a driver was desiring to pit – robbing them of an opportunity to make a inexperienced flag pit cease? Most groups would certainly decide to change tyres earlier than a restart after which push over the remainder of the race earlier than having to make a remaining lap pit cease to fulfill the rule, probably ruining what may in any other case be thrilling battles for place getting into the closing laps.
It’s tough to discover a answer to this downside that doesn’t contain advanced and complex rewriting of the rules to keep away from loopholes and never threat creating new issues in consequence. Scrapping the 2 compound requirement and permitting groups to run no matter they wish to in races – even when meaning with out stopping in any respect – might be a technique to scale back the affect of purple flags, however can have a profound affect on the racing in typical circumstances too. And it wouldn’t change the state of affairs which occured final weekend.
As with so many elements of F1’s rule e-book, discovering an answer which works in all attainable conditions isn’t as simple because it usually appears. Fixes which seem easy usually introduce unexpected penalties which wily groups are prepared to take advantage of. Whereas the present association is unsatisfactory for a lot of, they could have to just accept it and, within the groups’ instances, put together their methods accordingly.
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