Radio: Penalties will be hard to establish

The new qualifying format is not the only new element of the regulations for the 2016 season of F1. Radio exchanges between the team and the driver will also be limited in order to give more power to the competitor. Messages from the stands will be mainly dedicated to safety and should no longer impact performance on track.

However, teams are used to playing with the rules and the risk of having coded messages is high as there are so many restrictions. Charlie Whiting, the FIA ​​racing director, admitted that matters would have to be considered on a case-by-case basis.

“It will depend on the message and the information it contains…”, he explained on the official F1 website. “I would really wonder if I hear about birds flying high in the sky or other things like that… If we are in doubt, we can check the data from the car and see if the driver reacted. We will listen to all messages, I can assure you..."

While F1 is criticized for its rules being too complicated for spectators, Charlie Whiting nevertheless assures that this ban corresponds to the wishes of the public.

“We have had many complaints from viewers who are tired of continually hearing the engineers assisting the pilot. This is what we wanted to stop, but the driver always has the right to say what he wants. We can always have juicy comments. The driver may call an opponent an idiot if he behaves badly on the track. That's usually what people like to hear." added the Federation race director.