The Federation has launched a refinement of the rules for this race to meet a request from the pilots, thus less obliged to manage the charging: the energy limit goes from 9 to 8 megajoules
At Suzuka, the FIA collected the observations that emerged between Australia and China, where the drivers had reported that the entire energy recovery process of the power unit had become too penalizing in terms of pure performance on the flying lap. To be clear, in qualifying, with drivers often forced to make accountant-like maneuvers or slow down “to recharge” when normally the only thought should be to push to the maximum. Until today, the maximum limit of energy recoverable in a single lap, according to the regulation, was set at 9 MJ (megajoule). A value which, in qualifying, ended up profoundly altering the driving approach. To achieve such high energy recovery, in fact, the pilots were forced to distort their style, giving up chasing absolute maximum performance and instead concentrating on managing battery recharging. In this sense, Leclerc’s words in Australia are emblematic: “It is no longer possible to push to the maximum in qualifying because you have to manage energy and this particularly displeases me, as on the flying lap I have always managed to extract the best in terms of performance”.
reduction
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At Suzuka the FIA decided to reduce it to 8 MJ. Even if the difference is only 1 MJ, pilots should no longer be forced to resort to unnatural maneuvers of lift and coast (lift the accelerator pedal and sail) during the flying lap, nor to tackle some corners with lower gears than those ideally required for that section of the circuit. In essence, the change introduced by the FIA for this weekend in qualifying aims to bring the driver back to the center of the performance, encouraging a return to more instinctive and natural driving, in which the driver’s value in extracting the maximum from the car can emerge without the constant worry of the energy balance.
works in progress
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It would be excessive to call it a revolution, but it is a correction that clearly goes in the direction of a Formula 1 that is more faithful to the real performance of car and driver. In other words, closer to the idea of the show that the public expects to see in qualifying. Naturally, a rule designed for the flying lap has a much simpler application than any corrective measures to be introduced in the race. Over distance, in fact, the issue remains more complex, especially if the objective is to reduce those now frequent dynamics of overtaking immediately followed by counter-overtaking, caused by the exhaustion of energy after the use of the boost by those who have just completed the attack. However, a first concrete sign remains. And it is the same statement released by the FIA at the dawn of Europe that clearly indicates it: the process of refining the rules on the energy management of power units is still evolving and, in fact, is only at the beginning.
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