FIA Rules On Roll Hoops And Grid Penalties Ahead Of United States GP

Formula 1’s governing body, the FIA, has changed the technical regulations for 2023 that require a strengthening of roll hoops following an investigation into Zhou Guanyu’s huge Lap 1 crash at Silverstone this year.

The Alfa Romeo driver was flipped upside down and sent flying into the catch fencing at the first corner just moments after the start of the British Grand Prix – and was later declared fit by the medical centre.

Following a meeting of the World Motor Sport Council in London, the FIA have adjusted Article 12.4.1 of their technical rules, which centre around the principal roll structure, including a rewording of the text to state it must be able to support a 15g vertical impact.

A chassis’ rear-view mirror’s dictated size has also been increased for “better blindspot visibility” and “improvement of brake circuit definition”.

Regarding the sporting regulations, the procedure to determine grid positions after multiple penalties have been applied has now been clarified.

Grid penalty rules

Motor racing’s governing body came under fire at Monza after it took almost four hours after qualifying for the final grid to be sorted in the wake of a host of penalties being handed out.

Following a meeting of the World Motor Sport Council in London on Wednesday, the revised rules have already been put into the 2022 sporting regulations.

The revised regulations, detailed in the grid element of F1’s Sporting regulations for both sprint weekends and normal events, outline how the penalties are handed out.

This explains in detail the new process introduced a few years ago that locks in drivers to grid drops rather than continually shuffling drivers forward, as happened in the past.

Through Article 42.2 of its sporting rules, the FIA will now rely on what it calls a ‘nominally empty grid’ method to see the grid built in stages, which should prove straightforward for teams to figure out.

The FIA’s new rules will be in force from this week’s US Grand Prix.

1. a) Classified drivers who have received 15 or less cumulative grid penalties will be allocated a temporary grid position equal to their Qualifying Classification plus the sum of their grid penalties. Suppose two or more drivers share a temporary grid position. In that case, their relative order will be determined in accordance with their Qualifying Classification, with the slowest driver keeping their allocated temporary grid position and the other drivers getting temporary grid positions immediately ahead of them.
2. b) Following the allocation of temporary grid positions to penalised drivers in accordance with (a), unpenalised classified drivers will be allocated any unoccupied grid position in the sequence of their Qualifying Classification.
3. c) Following the allocation of grid positions to unpenalised classified drivers, penalised drivers with a temporary grid position, as defined in (a), will be moved up to fill any unoccupied grid position.
4. d) Classified drivers who have accrued more than 15 cumulative grid position penalties or who have been penalised to start at the back of the grid will start behind any other classified driver. Their relative position will be determined per their Qualifying Classification.
5. e) Unclassified drivers who have been permitted to participate by the Stewards will be allocated grid positions behind all the classified drivers. Their relative positions will be determined per Article 39.3 (b).