New rules for F1 in 2011.

[SGWilko]

Awful. It's a stupid rule to regulate against their other stupid rules. Just get rid of the mandatory tyre switch.

Amen - the voice of reason!

[ioan]

If you've used both specs of tires, that means you've made the pit stop and lost 20-30 seconds to those who have not yet stopped.

But that also means that if the rain comes pouring down in lap 3 to 10 the driver who made a change of tires on lap one due to a collision or something will win the race.

And what if someone want to drive a 40laps long first stint?! Do we have to penalize them if the race is stopped after lap 39?!

Let's get real FFS.

[ioan]

True, but the rule is nontheless hitherto extremely unfair and skewed for any car/driver combination who is very tyre sympathetic and can make the set they started the race on last. If they were planning on making a last gasp late stop, the rule has no allowance for this.

I call this rule downright stupid.
It is incredible that so many people agreed to it and it was introduced as a rule for F1.

[ioan]

Awful. It's a stupid rule to regulate against their other stupid rules. Just get rid of the mandatory tyre switch.

[ioan]

People are missing the point about the water first having to flow to a drain before living the track and we can not have a track made of drain covers.
Nothing amazes me anymore.

[call_me_andrew]

What money is the curfew rule going to save? These people are not paid by the hour.

[gloomyDAY]

What money is the curfew rule going to save? These people are not paid by the hour.

That's what I thought too! Let the teams decide what they want to do with their personnel. Geez, this crap reeks of NASCAR circa 2005.

[Mark]

Far from mixing things up, the tyre rule makes sure most teams use the same strategy.

Otherwise you could have mix between drivers doing 1 stop on hard tyres and 2 stops on soft tyres.

[AndyL]

What money is the curfew rule going to save? These people are not paid by the hour.

The curfew's not about money, it's about health and safety. The Red Bull mechanics in particular pulled a lot of all-nighters this year - the FIA wants to prevent this becoming an accepted norm. Doubtless to US members this will sound like communism but in Europe it's accepted that regulations should strongly protect employees from exploitation by their employers.

[fandango]

I think they should limit the number of mechanics per teams at the circuit, and make the "race team" a standard number of people, the same for every team.

The problem with the curfew rule as it is now is that it penalises the poorer teams, because the ones with money can just bring more mechanics to get the work done in the available time. So they should have looked at limiting the number of people on the race team as well limiting the time the teams can work on the cars.

I actually think they should have cameras in the garages so that the fans can see what's going on. A post-qualy expert-driven report TV show on the teams' updates and fixes would be fascinating for petrolhead F1 fans.