FIA refines its rules against 'dirty driving' for 2011
After a series of incidents in 2010, the FIA has come to the conclusion that Formula 1 is about fair and “clean driving” rather than an imposition of overtaking and pace. Therefore, the FIA recently announced that the stewards will be given even more power
to penalize those drivers who do not follow their rules or try to make unnecessary dangerous/dirty moves on their opponents.
According to the recent official release about 2011’s sporting and technical regulations by the FIA, the teams will now be allowed to use KERS, movable rear wings and the return of 107% qualifying rule. This means that the back running teams will have to
work extremely hard and score faster times in 2011 or they won’t even qualify for the race that follows.
Other than that, the document stated that drivers will not have the liberty to take on their respective opponent in a crowded portion of the circuit or cutting corners. Michael Schumacher was involved in such an incident as he almost pushed Rubens Barrichello
into the concrete wall at the Hungarian Grand Prix.
These sorts of incidents make the sport dangerous for the drivers and as a result, this is a very bold step taken by the FIA.
“Manoeuvres liable to hinder other drivers, such as more than one change of direction to defend a position, deliberate crowding of a car beyond the edge of the track or any other abnormal change of direction, are not permitted,” reads Article 20.2 of the
Sporting Regulations.
The article added that the white line at the edge of a track will be considered as the boundary line of the track and the kerbs will not be considered as a part of the track.
“A driver will be judged to have left the track if no part of the car remains in contact with the track. Should a car leave the track for any reason the driver may rejoin. However, this may only be done when it is safe to do so and without gaining any advantage,”
according to the Sporting Regulations.
Other than that, the backmarkers will have to get out of the way of faster running cars as soon as they can but only when the faster cars are overlapping them obviously. Otherwise, the driver who ignores the blue flags will be referred to the stewards of
the meeting.
If drivers fail to follow these rules, they can be given a time penalty, a reprimand, exclusion from the results or suspension from the driver’s next event other than the usual drive through and ten second penalties.
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