Formula 1’s governing body, the FIA, has updated the rulebook ahead of the 2025 season to improve safety and to ensure teams don’t take advantage of potential loopholes in the regulations. Article 43.8 has been updated to bring about a change in the pit lane start procedure. In addition, Article 26.10 now offers race director Rui Marques more authority to ask teams to prevent their damaged cars from interfering in the race.
Article 43.8 has been revised to prevent teams from taking undue advantage during pit lane starts, since it makes it mandatory for pit lane starters to participate in the formation lap. After the formation lap, the respective cars will return to the pit to follow the pit lane race start procedure. The updated rule states:
“Once all cars on track have passed the end of the pit lane on the formation lap, the pit exit will be opened and all cars starting from the pit lane able to do so must leave the pit lane and join the formation lap.”
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As F1 enters a new era of regulations next year, the FIA seems to be eliminating any possible loopholes that could alter race outcomes. Speaking of Article 26.10, the FIA aims to prevent damaged cars from being present on the racetrack after an incident, including prohibiting drivers from driving their damaged cars into the pit as a move to make the sport safer.
In addition, it is also likely that the FIA intended to stop teams from preventing a potential safety car situation. Teams were in the capacity to do this by ordering their respective drivers to somehow drive back their damaged cars. Now though, Marques can directly request teams to pull over their damaged cars at a safe location on the racetrack to rule out an interference in race results.
A controversial incident from the 2024 Canadian Grand Prix could have pushed the FIA to edit the rule. Red Bull’s Sergio Perez drove his damaged RB20 back to the pit and reportedly avoided a safety car deployment that could have hampered his teammate Max Verstappen’s chances of winning the race. The revised article states:
“Any driver whose car has significant and obvious damage to a structural component which results in it being in a condition presenting an immediate risk of endangering the driver or others, or whose car has a significant failure or fault which means it cannot reasonably return to the pit lane without unnecessarily impeding another competitor or otherwise hindering the competition must leave the track as soon as it is safe to do so.”
