Does FIA need to rethink approach to wet race conditions? - F1 Q&A

BBC News

6 days ago

Oscar Piastri led Lando Norris to a McLaren one-two at the Belgian Grand Prix, extending his drivers' championship lead by 16 points. Formula 1 heads to Hungary for round 14 next weekend before the summer break. BBC Sport F1 correspondent Andrew Benson answers your latest questions.
In both races this weekend, it almost seemed to be a disadvantage to qualify on pole because of the slipstream on such a long straight. Is there anything that can be done on this specific track to ensure pole is actually an advantage? - TomIt's true that both the pole winners at the Belgian Grand Prix last weekend lost the lead on the run up to Les Combes on the first lap, and that lost the them the race - Oscar Piastri to Max Verstappen in the sprint, and Lando Norris to Piastri in the Grand Prix.Actually, though, they were two different circumstances.The sprint was a standing start in the dry. Piastri did all he could, but Verstappen followed him through Eau Rouge and slipstreamed past him up the hill.Piastri knew before the race that this was a likely eventuality. That's partly because of the layout of the track, but also partly because Verstappen was running lower downforce than Piastri and so had an advantage on the straight anyway.This was visible thereafter in the sprint, when Piastri, despite a quicker car and a significant advantage in the middle sector of the lap, could never get close enough to have a go at Verstappen.The Grand Prix was different. It was wet, and it was a rolling start. That should have made it a lot easier for Norris to keep the lead.But there are questions about his restart, which were even raised by McLaren team principal Andrea Stella.First, Norris went early, and Piastri went with him, so Norris did not have the lead over the start line that would have been helpful in keeping his position.Then Norris made a mistake at La Source and that allowed Piastri to get even closer, which pretty much guaranteed Norris was a sitting duck. Piastri then guaranteed he'd pass by going as fast as he dared - faster than Norris dared - through Eau Rouge."Oscar deserved it," as Norris said.But it's not a given that the pole-winning driver will lose the lead at Spa at Les Combes - Charles Leclerc managed to retain it last year, for example. It depends on the circumstances.As for the remark about pole, yes, it's meant to be an advantage conferred on a driver as a reward for qualifying fastest. But it's no more than that. It does not mean the driver who secures it has a divine right to lead at the end of the first lap. Of course they don't.So why should anything be done about this at Spa in particular? Doing so would mean changing a historic, charismatic and demanding layout. And no one wants to lose that.
Safety should and will be always be paramount in F1, but do you feel the FIA needs to recalibrate how to manage wet race conditions? Do you think the FIA's overly-conservative approach is hampering F1 drivers truly demonstrating their all-weather driving abilities? - HarjThere was a feeling after the Belgian Grand Prix that the race director had erred on the side of caution a little too much in deciding when the race should be started.Max Verstappen said he felt the race could have been run on schedule at 3pm local time, and that there was no need to red-flag it if they had just let the cars run for a couple more laps to clear some water from the track.But he had a vested interest because Red Bull had changed his car to have more downforce than the McLarens and Leclerc's Ferrari exactly because they were anticipating rain.And Lewis Hamilton said he felt that even after the delay they could have started sooner.However, all the drivers acknowledged that they had asked race officials not to start a wet race too early, after an incident at Silverstone where they did.There, after a safety-car restart, Racing Bulls' Isack Hadjar smashed into the back of Kimi Antonelli's Mercedes at Copse simply because he could not see it before he hit it.You also have to factor in the dangers of Spa, and the incidents that killed Anthoine Hubert in 2019 and Dilano van t'Hoft in 2023 in junior category races.Both of them crashed and then bounced back on to the track, where they were hit at high speed by another car, suffering fatal injuries.As Piastri put it after the race: "Maybe we could have done one less formation lap. But in the grand scheme of things, if that's one lap too early, is it worth it? No."
Is Lewis Hamilton's drop in performance caused by trying too hard and overthinking everything in the whole organisation? Surely there's only so much one person can do? - EdLewis Hamilton's Belgian Grand Prix weekend was actually an anomaly in what had been an encouraging run of form in recent races.After a difficult start to the season, his average qualifying deficit to team-mate Charles Leclerc has been just 0.05 seconds since the Miami Grand Prix in May, and he had out-qualified Leclerc in three of the previous four races.But by Hamilton's own admission, his driving in both qualifying sessions in Spa was "unacceptable".There were, though, extenuating circumstances. There were new braking characteristics on his car in Spa which Leclerc had been running since Canada, and Hamilton had chosen not to until Belgium. And Ferrari introduced a new rear suspension aimed at allowing them to run the car lower.The changes to car behaviour caught Hamilton out when he braked hard for the Bus Stop chicane in sprint qualifying.Hamilton also had a new data engineer, someone he had previously worked with at Mercedes, last weekend."It's not easy to switch engineers within the middle of a season," Hamilton said. "It's someone that I've known for years. He was actually on my previous team with me. But not in that position. So we're getting used to each other. Having to learn super, super quick."The changes that we had really caught both of us out."And he simply made a misjudgement in just exceeding track limits at Raidillon in qualifying for the grand prix. There was nothing wrong with his pace - he was within a smidge of Leclerc on that lap before it was deleted.There's nothing bigger behind the events of last weekend than that.
If Red Bull's new engine next year is clearly down on performance and not likely to be a front-runner that season, how long will Max Verstappen hang around? When will we be able to form an impression of what next year's engine might be able to give him? - GeoffThe first thing to say here is that there is simply no way for anyone to know whether Red Bull's 2026 engine is "clearly down on performance".What can be said is that the F1 grapevine suggests Mercedes have a small advantage over the other manufacturers on their internal combustion engine performance for 2026 so far.Although manufacturers are working in isolation, and they will reject any suggestion they might be behind, figures creep out in various ways.But even if that's true, next year is not just about internal combustion engine performance. There is the electrical part of the engine, which provides about 50% of the total power output, and the new sustainable fuels, which will also have a significant effect.So relative performance levels will only become apparent next year.There are also questions about Red Bull's car design group, of course, after their slump in form in the past 18 months following Adrian Newey's departure.As for Verstappen's future, you can pretty much take it as read that he will be staying at Red Bull in 2026. My sources tell me he doesn't want to leave, for a whole raft of reasons.But given the above explained uncertainty, the logical decision anyway is to stay. That way, Verstappen can see how the land lies in 2026, and if Red Bull are struggling it will be contractually easier to move in that case as well.