FIA make series of regulation changes ahead of 2017

A series of regulation changes for the 2017 season have been agreed following a World Motor Sport Council meeting in Paris, the FIA have announced. Changes to the Formula One sporting regulations for next season will see further clarification over outsourcing deals and conduct with listed and non-listed parts of the car.Races that start under wet conditions will also see an overhaul. If a safety car is needed to start a race in these weather conditions, the cars will line up on the grid for a proper start at the end of the safety car period rather than starting the first racing lap as they pass the first safety car line.

Some fans have previously expressed their displeasure when a race starts under a safety car but they will now see a start to give the anticipation of each car on the grid to the audience.

The last race to start under a safety car was the British Grand Prix in July, which started after a quick late downpour of rain.

The rule over drivers having to keep their helmet designs for each race of the season is continued, with each driver allowed one change for a certain race in the year. Drivers are also allowed to alter their design if they switch teams mid-season.

The mid-season change was implemented at this year’s Monaco Grand Prix and many drivers have used special helmets at events, such as Max Verstappen having an orange lion of the Netherlands on top of his crash helmet at the Belgian Grand Prix.

If a driver changes takes more than one of one of the six parts of the power unit for future events, the last duplicate part they have taken can only be used for races without another penalty.

This should prevent teams racking up large amounts of penalties by taking multiple parts of each power unit component such as Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso having 55 and 60-place grid penalties for this year’s Belgian Grand Prix.

Rules over tyre allocation for the first five races of the season will also be altered. Pirelli will now give each driver two sets of the hardest tyre, four of the medium tyre and seven of the softest tyres for these races.

According to the provisional 2017 calendar, these events are set to be in Australia, China, Bahrain, Russia and Spain.

The normal eight-week and 14-week deadlines for deciding tyres for European and fly-away races is seemingly expected to continue after this as there has been no further update on this rule.

It should bring another interesting development to strategy for these initial races as next season each team will have experience of having three sets of tyres for the events from their race weekends in 2016.

This had almost proven crucial to the result in this season’s Australian Grand Prix where Ferrari were fighting Mercedes for the win for much of the first half of the race.

The next World Motor Sport Council meeting is set to occur in Vienna on 30 November.