Paris (AFP)
Formula 1 on Thursday endorsed the stopping of engine development from early 2022 until the regulatory change in 2025 and will look into new racing formats and the establishment of a salary cap, especially for drivers .
The first meeting of the year of the F1 Commission of the International Automobile Federation (FIA) also confirmed the "intention" to organize a GP in Portimao (Portugal) on May 2, the date scheduled for a race whose the location remained to be determined.
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Freezing of engines between 2022 and 2025
"Unanimously", according to a press release, the teams and manufacturers have agreed to no longer upgrade their power units between early 2022 and the change in engine regulations advanced from 2026 to 2025. This decision follows that of Honda , which powers Red Bull and AlphaTauri, to withdraw at the end of 2021. The brand with bulls hopes to buy the technology developed by the Japanese firm to continue using it but it does not have the financial means to make it progress.
This freeze on developments therefore guarantees fairness with competition from Mercedes, Ferrari and Renault.
To prepare for the regulatory change of 2025, a "working group" was also created, "comprising current and potential engine manufacturers and fuel suppliers".
Several objectives have already been set: "respect for the environment and relevance for society and the automotive sector", "fully sustainable fuel", "significant cost reduction" or even "attractiveness towards new engine manufacturers ".
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New formats for the Grands Prix
For several years, F1 has been discussing new formats that are supposed to make the Grands Prix less monotonous.
The inversion of the starting grids established in qualifying (which put the fastest on a lap at the front and so on) was rejected by the brand new CEO of F1 Stefano Domenicali.
Today the "sprint races" are in pole position.
The idea is to compete in the "qualifiers" from Friday afternoon, to organize instead on Saturday a 100 km race, the result of which will determine the Sunday grid (for a race of the usual length of 300 km) and which could also allow drivers and manufacturers to score points.
Ahead of a possible experimentation this year (in Canada on June 13, in Italy on September 12 and in Brazil on November 7, according to numerous media), the teams expressed "broad support" for this initiative and a "working group" was also created "with the aim of reaching a decision before the start of the 2021 championship" in Bahrain on March 28.
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Salary cap for drivers and team managers
While the budgets of the teams have so far gone from single to triple, F1 has agreed on an annual spending ceiling in order to reduce performance gaps and limit the economic and financial impact of the coronavirus crisis .
For its first season in 2021, it will be 145 million dollars (120 million euros), then will be further reduced thereafter.
However, the salaries of pilots and top team leaders are excluded.
For now at least.
A third working group "including the pilots themselves" has in fact been created to discuss these contracts.
While the amount of 30 million dollars (25 million euros) per team (i.e. for two pilots) has been mentioned for 2023, the seven-time British world champion Lewis Hamilton, whose annual income is approaching 40 million dollars, was wary of this idea last year.
"There have been salary caps in certain sports, the NFL (the American football league, editor's note) for example, he reminded Bahrain. But the difference is that these athletes have their image in many areas and that they can try to monetize it, when our sport largely controls the image of the pilots ", the sponsorship contracts concluded by F1 and the teams preventing their heroes from signing personal deals in many cases.
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