Should F1 change its post-race technical procedures?

Were ALL the cars illegal until officials found two that really were, and had only one thing illegal?

You a-hole snot-nosed champagne sippin officials better get your act together and start writing rules that you can really check for,

or just make it legal in some way cuz I can assure you that the mechanics drinking beer down at the Dew Drop Inn are all laughing about how you wasted time farting around and didn't find the REAL stuff that all the fans of Smoky Yunick know are not written in the rule book!

...but everybody is doing!

Steven Tee/Motorsport Images
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emailBy Chris Medland | October 25, 2023 2:10 PM ET

Picture the scene: You’ve just been to watch a thrilling race, where any one of three drivers looked to be in with a shout of winning for much of it, and there was uncertainty about the outcome right up until the final lap.

Then you’ve made your way onto the grid, watched the podium ceremony surrounded by thousands of others, slowly walked off after a few photos, sat in traffic for a while but still made it downtown to grab some dinner while buzzing about the day you’ve had.

Suddenly you start to overhear strange comments and shouts of annoyance or unusual laughter… And then you’re pretty sure the word “disqualified” was said. You grab your phone and check online and there’s the news.

So it turns out there wasn’t uncertainty about the outcome right up until the final lap — there was uncertainty about the outcome right up until over three and a half hours after the checkered flag had been waved to call off the battle.

It just doesn’t seem right, does it? (We have to say things as a question so we don't get kicked out of the press room
and then lose our job over not being able to reportt)
Podium ceremonies are a big part of the fan experience at F1 races…which makes their being rendered irrelevant by subsequent revelations all the more of a buzz kill. Mark Sutton/Motorsport Images

I’m sure at this point some of you are already busy typing “Do you not know motorsport?! Cars take time to go through technical checks!” And yes, they do. This is not a dig at the FIA, which cannot be expected to check everything on every car within seconds of a race finishing.

In fact, the technical brilliance that is inherent in Formula 1 is something that needs to be protected, but that doesn’t mean the time it took for the result to be changed on Sunday night can’t be looked at and learned from.

In some ways, it’s a tougher challenge than sporting penalties, because of how complex F1 machinery is and the level of detail that needs looking into during post-race scrutineering to ensure that cars are conforming with the technical regulations. But in other ways, it’s much easier.

As we evidenced by the decision that came out from the stewards on Sunday night, there is a zero-tolerance approach to technical breaches.

“The stewards note that the onus is on the competitor to ensure that the car is in compliance with the regulations at all times during an event,” the decision said. “In this particular case, the rear skid in the area defined in the Technical Delegate’s report was outside of the thresholds outlined in Article 3.5.9 e) of the FIA Formula One Technical Regulations, which includes a tolerance for wear. Therefore, the standard penalty for a breach of the Technical Regulations is imposed.”

In case you don't know official-speak, that means that something which is supposed to grind off during a race isn't as big as it was before it got ground off.
and it's all the fault of the racers instead of the officials who cannot pull their head out long enough to write a rule that covers what they are now saying is illegal.

And it’s not as if Mercedes or Ferrari argued that case at all. Mercedes technical director James Allison has since admitted there is embarrassment within the team for such an error that led to it being disqualified as the rules are so clear cut. (He thinks he will get some mercy if he confesses in advance that the officials are blameless and it's the racers fault...an excuse which never works.)

“Of course the disqualification is a significant blow,” Allison said. “It’s a miserable feeling. It hurts and everybody here feels it. Everybody is upset, embarrassed to a degree as well because we absolutely don’t like being on the wrong side of the rules and just lamenting the lost points.

“Austin is a track with a very bumpy surface and therefore you are a bit more vulnerable to bumping the car on the ground. We just simply didn’t take enough margin at the end of Free Practice 1. When we had done our setup we checked the plank and everything all looked fine, untouched after the FP1 running.

“But the results of the race speak for themselves. We were illegal, so clearly, we should have had our car set a little bit higher up to give ourselves a little bit more margin. It’s of course a mistake — it’s an understandable sort of mistake in a sprint weekend where it’s so much harder to get that stuff right, especially on a bumpy track. But a lesson for us in the future to make sure that we take more margin, especially at a track like that with all its bumps.”

The issue I have is that if there are aspects of a car that can be worn during a race and need to be checked in terms of tolerances, and then a certain car — or two in this week’s case — is proven to be the wrong side of the line, why does it still take so long to be decided upon? How long does it take to teach someone how
to use a ruler?....or to make a gauge that you slide in and it either fits or it doesn't...? This is why we have pictures of a big mac on the register at MacDonalds.

A lesson to be learned from an organizational point of view would be to inform teams they will be called immediately during parc ferme checks to discuss what has happened. Better yet is to have them standing in line knowing that they will be called in to confess their sins. There was nearly an hour and a half between Mercedes and Ferrari being summoned and the decision to disqualify both cars being published. So far there is no typewriter with words or pictures of words,
like are on the cash register.

In cases like this, it doesn’t need to take that long. It’s obviously not going to be as simple as the FIA dropping everything to handle that specific situation at a certain time but that’s where resource and investment continues to be required. In a week where the governing body increased the maximum fine amount to competitors in F1 to over $1 million — money that is intended for grassroots motorsport and other lies — there surely can be other revenue streams found.

The Remote Operations Center (ROC) in Geneva that was established in the aftermath of the Abu Dhabi 2021 debacle has been up and running for more than a year but doesn’t appear to have had a hugely noticeable impact so far. Maybe someone should speak the unthinkable .....that someone should actually work there on weekends when races are run. Perhaps those in the ROC could be tasked with hearing from a team representative as quickly as possible when an issue with a car is found, allowing post-race checks to continue uninterrupted but a decision to be made more quickly.