With the return of Formula One this weekend at the famed Spa-Francorchamps circuit in Belgium, one thing that has been highly spoken about between drivers and some of the press is the new starting procedures that take effect this weekend.
While the starting procedure itself hasn’t necessarily changed, drivers are no longer instructed from the pit-wall over some facets of tuning the car up for the start.
It comes as the FIA clamps down on Article 20.1 of the regulations: “the driver shall drive the car alone and unaided”.
For the rest of this season, it’s now up to the driver to find their clutch bite-point. With some top drivers having issues leaving the grid in recent races this could spice things up at the start, and Spa has always had a history for chaotic starts.
Just look at Romain Grosjean starting a multi-car accident in 2012, or when the 1998 Belgian GP was red flagged after 13 drivers were involved at La Source in the rain, with the restart taking out Johnny Herbert and Mika Hakkinen. In 1990 there were three attempts to start the race.
Understandably, it is one of the Mercedes chiefs, Toto Wolff, who has voiced most concern about the new rules, saying that they could be better if tweaked a bit. Both Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg have been bogged down at the starts in recent races in Austria, Silverstone and Hungary.
Is it going to cause drama beyond expectations, or variability beyond expectations?
“If so then it will need to be looked at again and adjusted,” Toto told Autosport.
“What none of us want is completely unpredictable starts for everybody which then completely devalues qualifying.”
Some drivers are welcoming the change, such as Fernando Alonso, who believes it puts the driver in more control of the car.
“We will have to pay a bit more attention on a few things that now we rely on a little bit via the radio,” Alonso said.
“But it’s not a big change, and is probably welcome – just to have more to do in the car and feeling a little bit more important.”
Alonso was backed up by Toro Rosso rookie Max Verstappen, who said that realistically these changes shouldn’t worry the drivers as they are taught to develop an understanding of the car in lower categories.
In 2016, drivers will only be allowed to use one of the two clutches currently in the car, and according to McLaren’s Jenson Button, this will be when the real change comes for the drivers.
“Next year’s starts will be very different, it’s completely manual, but this year it’s still the same,” Button said.
“Will it shake things up? Not really.”
Interestingly, the driver who could benefit the most from this change, seeing as Mercedes have had start issues recently, doesn’t really understand why the changes were introduced. Sebastian Vettel believes drivers will just learn to adapt.
“I don’t think it will change much; maybe it will be a bit chaotic on Sunday – and maybe the next Sunday,” Vettel said.
“Drivers are capable of doing a lot of things, so I think two or three races down the line nothing changes.”
So, with Spa’s history littered with chaotic starts, maybe with the FIA clamping down on Article 20.1 we could be in with an interesting return from the European summer break this weekend.
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