'Red Bull backed by Mercedes on new rules for pitstop equipment'
F1 News
- GPblog.com
The FIA had planned to make all teams' pit stop equipment the same from 2022 onwards, stopping teams' development. Red Bull was not in favour of this, but surprisingly also got support from Mercedes, reports Motorsport.it.
Formula 1 has always been about technological developments. Teams came up with the smartest engineers to outsmart the competition. However, in recent years this has become so big that huge amounts of money are spent on development in the sport. Liberty Media wants to put an end to this.
Mercedes and Red Bull fight together
Because with big amounts of money, also come big differences between teams. It becomes a sport for the big brands, and no longer for the big drivers. With the budget cap and the cars for 2022 Liberty together with the FIA already made a good step in the direction of more equality in the sport, but one part did not make it.
The FIA also wanted to equalise the material used for the pitstops. The material would then be supplied by the Italian company Dino Paoli, which currently supplies all teams in F1 with the equipment and also provides the pit stop material in other classes. In this way, the company has already established its own kind of monopoly.
Rules as from Belgium
The FIA wants to make this step based on two things: Safety and saving costs. The FIA wanted to take an example from NASCAR, where Dino Paoli has also developed a system to prevent unsafe releases. The FIA was ready to present this plan to the teams, but Mercedes and Red Bull lied.
This doesn't alter the fact that from the Belgian Grand Prix onwards an important step in that direction will be taken by the FIA. From now on the car has to be released by human control again, and this shouldn't happen automatically anymore, to ensure safety in the pitlane.