PREVIEW: 2023 F1 season

Rule Changes

As is the case with most seasons, there have been a multitude of rule changes made for 2023. 

• Car set-up: The car will have their floor edges raised by 15 millimetres. This, along with the diffuser throat height being raised, will hopefully correct the propoising issue that caused cars to lose downforce.
• Cars will now need rounded hoops at the top of the roll hoop. This is for the safety of drivers and comes about after Zhou Guanyu’s horrendous crash at the 2022 British Grand Prix.
• The weight of cars without fuel in them will move down two kilograms from 798 kgs to 796 kgs. This will have been rather frustrating for the car designers who now need to knock an extra two kilograms off of the cars.
• The cars will now see an increase in the size of their mirrors from 50mm from 150mm to 200mm. This actually came into play at the Dutch Grand Prix last year with a number of teams running cars outfitted with 200mm mirrors. The change has been written into law for the 2023 season, however.
• There will now be six sprint events as opposed to last year’s three with Azerbaijan (Baku), Austria (Red Bull Ring), Belgium (Spa-Francorchamps), Qatar (Lusail), the United States (Circuit of The Americas) and Sao Paulo (Interlagos) are the venues chosen to host these events.
• Paddock working hours will now be cut rather significantly. This is going to really irk the team technicians who will now have to work a lot quicker than in the past.
• Revised qualifying formats will be tested at at least one of this year’s Grand Prix. This is the official quote from the FIA on what these revisions will entail “This will see tyre compounds mandated for each stage of F1’s usual three-part qualifying session: hard tyres only in Q1; mediums tyres only in Q2; and, finally, soft tyres only in Q3. Intermediates and wets will be allowed if the RQF sessions are declared wet.
  
  At RQF events, each driver may use no more than 11 sets of dry-weather tyres, four sets of intermediate tyres and three sets of wet-weather tyres. This compares to the normal weekend allowance of 13 sets of dry-weather tyres, four sets of intermediate tyres and three sets of wet-weather tyres”
• Teams will now be able to make slight modifications to their gearboxes during the season but these changes wll be heavily monitored by the FIA with all changes needing to be documented.
• With a number of drivers taking grid penalties on purpose last term and differing penalties being dished out, the FIA have moved to simplify this and avoid confusion over grid penalties. Grid penalties will now be dished out according to this “Classified drivers who have accrued more than 15 cumulative grid position penalties, or who have been penalised to start at the back of the grid, will start behind any other classified driver. Their relative position will be determined in accordance with their qualifying classification.”