The FIA’s World Motorsports Council has agreed to change the dates for official press conferences and postponed the description of the 2026 engine rules, as expected.
Already raised after the Canadian Grand Prix, the course for press conferences may change once again: They’ll be back on Thursday after Friday of the first nine weekends. In doing so, the association also responded to criticism from runners and members of the media that the new date often rendered what was said there irrelevant due to the proximity of free practice.
Under the new rule, F1’s official press conference will take place 23 hours before the first training session in a two-hour time format (according to previous news, 10 riders will participate in this, the rest will be present at their team events).
The meeting of the World Council also discussed the rules for the 2026 engine, which, according to previous news, could have been finalized today, but they were raised in recent weeks, and this will happen only later. The FIA confirmed this in a statement that the rules will be set in stone before the next World Motorsports Council.
The short statement mentions that the newcomers (two Volkswagen Group brands, Audi and Porsche), among others, were consulted extensively before deciding to announce the final rules later.
Several small details were announced at today’s meeting: the tests were updated to measure the flexibility of the rear wings, the fuel can now be cooled to 20°C in warmer races, the rules on the mirrors have been changed to improve visibility and the cars have been selected. requirements.
As a result of a number of technical bugs in the first weekends, some reliability issues were also identified. Teams will be given more room in the sequel to debug, as it will allow engines damaged during Parc Fermé to be replaced with units in stock (there was a penalty previously). In addition, the FIA has included a provision in the rules that allows the units to be repaired temporarily.
It was not mentioned in the official announcement, but several sources wrote about it, and the rules of 2023 were also mentioned: three sprint races are still planned, and a new system will be tested several times at the time of trial.
Accordingly, in the first stage (Q1) it is possible to complete only a fast roll on the hard mixture, in the second (Q2) only on the middle, and in the last stage (Q3) only on the soft mixture. If this format is successfully tested next year, the king class may switch to permanent use in 2024 as well. Bill 2024 also includes a ban on rubber heaters.
Photo: XPB
