Revised Radio Restrictions

REVISED RADIO RESTRICTIONS PUT IN PLACE

    The FIA have tightened the rules on radio restrictions following Nico Rosberg’s ten second penalty after the British Grand Prix.

    Not only will the restrictions now apply whenever the car isn’t in the pit lane, but drivers must be given a message to come into the pits if they receive any indication of problems with the car.

    The rules that came in at the start of the year state that teams can inform drivers of a “critical problem” with the car, with failure “imminent and potentially terminal”. The change removes the “critical” aspect, but drivers must be instructed to come into the pits to solve the problem.

    The rule now reads: “Indication of a problem with the car. Any message of this sort must include an irreversible instruction to enter the pits to rectify the problem or to retire the car.”

    Item three of the list of permitted messages has also changed. What was previously “information concerning damage to the car” is now “information concerning damage to the bodywork of the car”.

    Also changed is item four. This now reads:

    “Instructions to select driver defaults. This must be for the sole purpose of mitigating loss of function of a sensor, actuator, or controller whose degradation of failure was not detected and handled by the on-board software.”

    When the rules apply has also changed. When the rules came in at the start of the year, radio restrictions started when the car left the garage. This has been relaxed, with restrictions only applying when the car isn’t in the pit lane, with the exception of the slow down lap after the end of the race.

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Article Written By: Bethonie Waring
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