With the first official track action of the 2025 Formula 1 season just over a week away, the FIA published its latest update to the series’ rules.
Some changes, such as the introduction of an extra mandatory pit stop in Monaco and the scrapping of the bonus point for fastest lap, have already attracted significant attention. But other less obvious changes have emerged which could have a significant effect on how races play out this year.F1’s rules continue to become more complicated. The Sporting Regulations alone have grown from 107 pages last year to 120, and that is just one of several sets of rules which govern F1, along with the Technical regulations, Financial Regulations and over-arching International Sporting Code.
From those, here are 16 key rules changes to be aware of for the upcoming F1 season:
More practice opportunities for rookies
New procedure for setting the grid on disrupted weekends
No more bonus point for fastest lap
Two mandatory pit stops in Monaco
Changes to communication of ‘full wet’ tyre requirement
Changes to starting procedure
Teams must park damaged cars immediately
Tougher unsafe release rule in the pits
Optional driver cooling aid
New limit on running older cars
Post-season ‘mule’ car tyre test
Restrictions on gearboxes lifted
Tougher wing stiffness checks
Cars get heavier again
More stewards at some races
New guideline penalties for ‘misconduct’
Race weekend sessions
More practice opportunities for rookies
Drivers will qualify as sufficiently inexperienced for this purpose if they have “not participated in more than two championship races in their career.” Therefore, out of the six drivers who are starting their first full seasons this year, Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Isack Hadjar, Gabriel Bortoleto and Jack Doohan all qualify, so their teams will fulfil half their total obligation over the first two rounds.
However Liam Lawson, with 11 starts, is already too experienced, as is Oliver Bearman due to the three grands prix he started last year.
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New procedure for setting the grid on disrupted weekends
Prolonged rain at last year’s Brazilian Grand prix almost made it impossible for qualifying to go ahead. A new rule sets what will happen should that scenario ever play out:
“In the exceptional circumstance that the qualifying session does not take place at a competition, and with acceptance of the stewards that the session cannot take place, the grid for the race will be defined based upon the drivers’ championship classification. In such circumstance, the procedure defined in article 42.3 shall be applied using the drivers’ championship classification of each driver instead of their qualifying session classification, all drivers shall be considered to be classified.
“If neither of the methods of forming the grid for the race described above can be applied, the formation of the grid for the race shall be at the sole discretion of the stewards.”
No more bonus point for fastest lap
Last year it quietly announced the rule was being dropped for 2025. It later indicated the controversy at the Singapore Grand Prix, where Red Bull’s B-team driver Daniel Ricciardo prevented championship contender Lando Norris from scoring the bonus point, was the motivation.
- F1 finally reveals why it dropped the bonus point for fastest lap
- F1’s bonus point for fastest lap is dead. Will anyone notice it’s gone?
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Two mandatory pit stops in Monaco
This year, in Monaco only, they’ll have to make two pit stops. F1 has therefore created the bizarre circumstance where the only race which is required to be shorter than the regulation length, by 45 kilometres, is also the only one where drivers must change tyres twice.
- Full text of FIA’s new mandatory two-pit-stop rule for Monaco GP published
- Is F1’s two-stop rule the right solution for ‘boring’ Monaco races?
Changes to communication of ‘full wet’ tyre requirement
Several causes in the regulations relating to the circumstances under which race control will require drivers to use full wet weather tyres have been revised. A new rules has been inserted to the regulations on formation laps behind the Safety Car which states how this requirement will be communicated to teams:
“If the race director does not deem it necessary to mandate the use of wet-weather tyres, at the five (5) minute signal the orange lights of the safety car will be illuminated; this being the signal to the drivers that the formation lap(s) will take place behind the safety car. At the same time this will be confirmed to all competitors using the official messaging system.”
Changes to starting procedure
Following recent cases in which the correct starting procedures were not followed, notably in Interlagos last year and Monza the year before, the FIA has extensively rewritten the section of the rules governing starting procedures.
The revisions cover procedures and penalties relating to drivers starting from the pit lane and cars failing to leave the grid, as well as how extra formation laps and aborted starts are to be handled. The details are covered in articles 44, 45, 47 and 49 of the Sporting Regulations.
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Safety
Teams must park damaged cars immediately
- Teams can be ordered to stop damaged cars under new rule after Perez’s 2024 penalty
- Stewards were too soft on Red Bull’s Perez tactics to discourage copycats
Tougher unsafe release rule in the pits
The addition of 10 words to the rule on unsafe releases could result in more drivers being caught out if their teams send them out of their pit boxes too soon. The regulation now reads: “Cars must not be released from a garage or pit stop position in way that could endanger pit lane personnel or another driver, or that is likely to cause damage to another car” (new part in italics).
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Optional driver cooling aid
Since 2023’s excruciatingly hot Qatar Grand Prix, the FIA has been working on how to enforce the use of cooling aids to reduce the risk of harm to drivers. It will now issue a Heat Hazard warning if conditions are forecast to be hotter than 31C (previously 30.5C).
The intention is this will be used to force drivers to use the Driver Cooling System. However, for this year, the rules stop short of enforcing that (contrary to this article on the official F1 website). “Any driver may elect not to wear any items of personal equipment that form part of the driver cooling system,” state the rules.
Testing
New limit on running older cars
Post-season ‘mule’ car tyre test
As F1 will introduce new, smaller tyres next year, a special test has been arranged to follow the final race of the season. The teams must use the adapted ‘mule’ cars designed to simulate next year’s lower downforce levels for this test.
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Cars
Restrictions on gearboxes lifted
The limits on how many power unit components teams may use remains as before.
Tougher wing stiffness checks
The FIA is eager to rein in teams’ use of aeroelastic components in their wings – i.e., designs which deform at high speed to boost performance. Tighter tests for rear wings will be imposed from round one, and front wing will be subject to more demanding checks from round nine.
Cars get heavier again
The FIA intends to begin reversing the gradual increase in F1 car weights next year. But for now they’ve gone up again, finally reaching the milestone of 800 kilograms.
The latest rise was agreed to allow the minimum weight for drivers to rise from 80kg to 82kg. This allowance was introduced five years ago and this its first increase since then.
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Governance
More stewards at some races
The FIA now has the power to appoint four stewards instead of three (in addition to the driver representative) at some rounds of the world championship. This has been introduced to speed up decision-making at rounds where the workload tends to be higher.
New guideline penalties for ‘misconduct’
Alongside this, the FIA has introduced a series of escalating penalties for drivers who commit multiple infringements of the rules. The upshot is Formula 1 drivers can expect a fine of up to €40,000 for swearing, though exactly when they are at risk of this is a significant grey area. Official FIA press conferences are likely to attract the most attention, though some drivers went unpunished for using profanity in those last year.
- F1 drivers face bans and points deductions if they break FIA ‘misconduct’ rules
- Two new cases indicate when FIA will – and won’t – penalise drivers for swearing
Update: This article originally stated the option for race control to require the use of full wet weather tyres in some conditions had been dropped. It has been revised to clarify this is not the case.
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Formula 1
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Jere (@jerejj)
6th March 2025, 12:24
Regarding some of these changes:
Mercedes, Alpine, VCARB, & Sauber are lucky that they only need to fulfill one garage side’s minimum requirement beyond the Chinese GP.
Even though the FLAP point is gone, drivers can of course still do a short late soft stint if they & teams want to just for fun or doing effectively qualifying-trim running towards the end of any given race.
I think or at least I’ve comprehended that the separate requirement for the Monaco GP is more precisely about mandating the use of all three compounds in fully dry conditions, which automatically means at least two pit stops rather than ‘two’ pit stops directly regardless of compound usage or conditions.
As pointed out before, race control needs to be careful not to inadvertently cause inconsistencies with the new approach regarding driving around with car damage.
35C would be a more reasonable heat hazard limit as low-30s are nothing new to GPs, not to mention even the 2023 Qatar GP wasn’t ‘excruciatingly’ hot as the ambient during the race was about 31C, which is within the same temperature range as regularly in Singapore on both sides of 30, not to mention some European rounds in 2018-2020 had mid-30s ambients, so unusually high humidity was the only issue.
However, the Driver Cooling System being voluntary instead of mandatory is good & Ocon has even gone as far as to state that using a separate specified cooling vest is impossible for the time being.
I still wish FIA clarified how exactly would 798 kg as the minimum car+driver requirement be unachievable with 82 as the separate driver minimum when realistically thinking, teams shouldn’t struggle to achieve 798 any more than with 80 as the driver limit, given the difference is only marginal.
Yes, this formality doesn’t show on track at all, especially as some teams ran even heavier in 2022, meaning that the minimum requirement could’ve been something like 805 & no one would’ve noticed, but still another marginal increase for the sake of increasing.
AlanD
6th March 2025, 21:51
Jere, I didn’t follow your opening remark about Erc, VCARB, etc. What am I missing here?
SteveP
7th March 2025, 8:15
The teams mentioned have a driver with less than 2 races experience, and therefore that driver does not have to step aside and let a total noob drive the car in FP1.
Whereas RBR for example have Verstappen and Lawson, Lawson with 11 races experience is deemed experienced enough to be required to step aside. VCARB have Hadjar in one seat, and he is not deemed experienced enough to have to step aside.
So, for that seat, the first two rounds count as having a rookie in the seat and tick the box for the two FP1s per season the driver should step aside for a noob.
Jack Doohan is an anomaly since he did 1 race in 2024
AlanD
7th March 2025, 13:52
Steve, thanks, now it makes sense. By the time I got down to the comments, I’d forgotten about that rule change and couldn’t think what these teams had in common.
SteveP
7th March 2025, 19:54
I have a similar mental path when listening to certain members of staff at work :)
LetsGoRacing
8th March 2025, 8:26
Haven’t read the technical wording, but if they are deemed rookies can they remain in the seat as a rookie unless it specifically says it has to be someone different?
Alianora La Canta (@alianora-la-canta)
7th March 2025, 21:59
The issue isn’t the temperature, it’s the heat index. As such, the more humid the race, the lower the temperature at which the cooling rules would apply (both in the regulations and in terms of logic).
An Sionnach
6th March 2025, 13:51
On the starting procedure, they should add the following article:
* Please read, understand and comply with the starting procedure.
Alianora La Canta (@alianora-la-canta)
7th March 2025, 22:03
No need – Article 2.1 of the Sporting Regulations already requires “All drivers, Competitors and officials” to “observe all the provisions as supplemented or amended… together referred to as ‘the Regulations'”. Starting procedures are included in the Regulations.
David BR (@david-br)
6th March 2025, 14:04
The only two that might impact actual GP races directly would seem to be:
Teams must park damaged cars immediately + Tougher unsafe release rule in the pits
I can see both of those affecting races, based on the evaluations of the race director and stewards, and so inevitably likely to be fairly regular points of contention. Neither are bad rules – unless ‘damaged cars’ is seen as any car with visible damage, rather than those rare instances where we see a car driving round with some section of tis bodywork flapping in the wind about to fall off. The unsafe release is going to be trickier still to judge, maybe: “likely to cause damage to another car” sounds likely to be a constant refrain of driver radio complaints after leaving the pits now. So how much space/time will teams have to give to not be judged to have risked collision? Not easy.
David BR (@david-br)
6th March 2025, 14:09
On reflection, I’m not sure how good a rule the second is. If a driver is released too early and the driver behind has to take evasive action but there’s no collision, where is ther problem if there was no risk to anyone standing in the pit lane? Was any damage likely if a collision didn’t actually occur? Seems a bit dubious.
An Sionnach
6th March 2025, 15:25
Is there a change here at all, or are they trying to make it clearer? Looking at recent close releases that were and were not penalised, I’d say they seem to follow this rule already.
David BR (@david-br)
6th March 2025, 16:04
I really don’t know. I presumed that they’re trying to make these incidents less marginal (force teams to allow more of a gap for release) but I’m not sure how the extra bit of rule helps clarify anything.
Alianora La Canta (@alianora-la-canta)
7th March 2025, 22:04
@david-br Potentially. “Likely” is a lower standard of proof than “certainly” (which is what a collision would be). Also, requiring a collision as proof simply incentivises dangerous driving.
Craig
6th March 2025, 14:37
I’m hoping they provide a clearer idea of “damaged car” and how long they’ll take over ordering a driver to stop and where.
David BR (@david-br)
6th March 2025, 16:05
Me too. We want to see damaged cars that aren’t a safety issue try to return to the pits if the team thinks they can rescue the driver’s race.
Bullfrog (@bullfrog)
6th March 2025, 19:15
Sergio Perez on the first lap at Monaco last year was the definition of a damaged car.
Craig
6th March 2025, 19:19
You’re certainly not wrong there. I was thinking more if Vettel at Brazil in 2012 would count. I could certainly see Ferrari arguing that if this rule was in place at the time.
SteveP
7th March 2025, 8:20
With the FIA involved and their usual “clarity” in the wording? ROFL
RBAlonso (@rbalonso)
6th March 2025, 14:20
I’m still not sure how the championship order quali works for race 1 but realistically it was a gap that led to confusion, so I’m glad some work has been done.
For the Perez Canada rule under ‘safety’ – I couldn’t disagree more. It’s not for a steward to assess whether a car is drivable from a commentary box. If a car can make it to the pits, repaired and released that should be encouraged. A piece of carbon fibre can fall off any car at any time. We’ve seen thousands of loose front wings on lap one, would they be out of the race too? The Perez incident was politicised for avoiding a SC which assisted his team-mate during a period of dominance the like we’ve never seen before.
This is adding a rule that is rife for protests and abuse to cover ‘potentially dangerous’ scenarios. I genuinely think this rule is as far against F1’s DNA as any that have been introduced.
PeteB (@peteb)
6th March 2025, 14:25
It says if Championship order can’t be used, it’s up to the stewards to decide the grid. I assume they’ll probably use practice times to set the grid instead.
RBAlonso (@rbalonso)
6th March 2025, 14:31
Yeah I’d assume they’d use that too but it would be good if they clarified that. Furthermore, if quali can’t run, what if practice couldn’t either? If they’ve went to the bother of writing it, they should have done it thoroughly.
AlexS
6th March 2025, 23:55
I mean, if 10th place in championship cannot start then everyone else can still starts by their championship order.
An Sionnach
6th March 2025, 15:30
I’d definitely like to avoid a safety car where possible, so an orderly retirement that doesn’t cause any disruption would be preferable.
What would Gilles Villeneuve think of all of this?
anon
7th March 2025, 10:55
Do you think that Gilles was asking himself what Tazio Nuvolari would have thought of Formula 1 in the 1980s compared to the pre-war European Grand Prix championship of the late 1930s if we were to ask the same question for his time period and for the same difference in time between those two eras?
MazdaChris (@mazdachris)
7th March 2025, 11:55
Obviously at this point we have no idea how the rule allowing stewards to order a car to stop will be applied in races. Common sense would suggest that lap 1 incidents are likely to be treated with a bit more leniency since, firstly there’s more of the race left, so more time for the car to rejoin and still be competitive, and secondly there are no cars behind at racing speeds, giving marshals more time to clear any debris.
I’m hoping we don’t see situations where cars with very minor damage are told to stop. Logically, there should be no real reason why this would happen. Consider that F1 has had the meatball flag for many years, and we don’t see drivers with minor damage being ordered to the pits very often at all. You’d like to imagine there’s a hierarchy to how these instruments are used: minor damage with no structural issues – continue racing and monitor > Some damage with loose parts that show signs they may work loose – black and orange flag to return to the pits for repairs > major damage unlikely to be repairable and likely to result in significant dangerous debris – ordered to stop safely on track.
I don’t think there should be any situations where they would choose to invoke this rule where they wouldn’t otherwise have waved the black and orange meatball flag in the past.
Alianora La Canta (@alianora-la-canta)
7th March 2025, 22:07
@rbalonso The previous regulation for ordering cars when qualifying could not be run, the previous practice to have run was used in preference to the championship order (which was available as a backup). I don’t think the new regulation adds any benefit to the situation.
PeteB (@peteb)
6th March 2025, 14:22
Glad to see they’ve got rid of the gearbox limits. They’re reliable and there’s little benefit to using a new gearbox – it’s not like a new PU where you gain quite a lot of time on track. The primary reason drivers go over the limit is because they’ve gone into a wall backwards and that can often be the fault of another driver. Even when it’s their own fault, they’ve already been punished by retiring from the session (plus a hefty repair bill for the team.)
AlanD
6th March 2025, 21:54
Good points Pete.
Red Andy (@red-andy)
6th March 2025, 14:42
The rule allowing race control to mandate the use of full wet tyres was a good one, and should have been used more often. Several races, most notably Japan 2022, might have been less disrupted if teams had been forced to use tyres appropriate to the conditions rather than trying to chance it on intermediates.
From memory I think the only time race control would insist everyone use full wet tyres was when the race was started under a safety car.
MichaelN
6th March 2025, 17:19
And that was a post hoc rule change to smooth over Whiting’s groundless demand that teams use the Monsoon/Extreme tyres at the 2007 Japanese Grand Prix. He asserted he had proclaimed teams must follow his order, via some sketchy private email, and he then threatened to have Ferrari disqualified because they started on different tyres, forcing both to pit under a safety car neutralisation and drop all the way to the back. A complete absurdity given the championship implications. One can only imagine the outcry if such a manipulation happened today.
But anyway, it’s good to see this rule scrapped. It’s not the business of the race director which tyres a team uses.
However, the comment in the article that “drivers usually prefer the performance of Pirelli’s intermediate tyre to the full wet” needs a slight addendum. The problem with the Pirelli line-up is that the intermediate tyre is far more like a slick than it is like a wet weather tyre. As a result, there’s a gap between the wet and the intermediate tyres in which teams feel like the wet tyre is ‘too slow’ but where conditions aren’t quite suited yet for the intermediate tyres.
The result in recent years has been that teams switch to intermediate tyres prematurely, and then moan and complain for a neutralisation, usually with great success. Or until a crash happens. So the Pirelli wet tyres get a bad reputation that they don’t deserve. It’s the teams fault for putting their cars on the intermediate tyres while they are unsuited to present conditions.
To get teams to properly play the tyre game, there must be changes made at race control. Right now, as we saw in Brazil 2024, ‘gambling on a neutralisation’, indeed even a complete red flag, is a tactic numerous teams use. That this can lead to dangerous situations goes without saying. Numerous drivers reported being genuinely afraid to continue on the intermediate tyre. So the job of the FIA will be to take away that angle, and come up with a new approach to neutralisations in wet conditions. Continuing under VSC if at all possible presently seems to be the least bad option.
anon
7th March 2025, 14:11
MichaelN, contrary to your assertion “that was a post hoc rule change”, race control already had the power to order teams to start on a particular tyre compound due to the prevailing weather conditions prior to that race. It’s just that, until then, they’d normally not had to invoke that power because it’d usually be pretty obvious to the teams that they’d need to use those tyres if the track was that wet.
Whiting was therefore acting entirely within his powers as race director, and every other team seemed to have received the message without any issues. Ferrari were gambling that Whiting was going to postpone the start of the race and that they could therefore get away with starting on those tyres, and it backfired when Whiting didn’t postpone the start.
Alianora La Canta (@alianora-la-canta)
7th March 2025, 22:23
MichaelN, the regulation was premediated, albeit with less than optimal notice. It was a response to Nurburgring 2007 (implemented 6 weeks prior to Japan 2007), when the weather changed very quickly. The formation lap started dry but finished with rainfall that was marginal intermediate/extreme wet. The minute the cars were waiting for the starting lights, the rain got heavier and made the track absolute extreme wets territory. Everyone should have started on extreme wets – the rain was predicted, but there was 5 minutes of dispute about when exactly it was going to land (and only one team realised early enough that everyone’s predictions were off). That team, Spyker, put their debutante driver, Markus Winklehock, onto extreme wets at the end of the formation lap. one driver who actually did so ended up leading by 30 seconds by lap 4 despite having the slowest chassis in the field. Everyone else was struggling to even make it back into the pits (and in some cases missing the pit lane because they were aquaplaning over the white lines). The FIA understood that with everyone on extreme wets, the start would not have been such a farce, and thus put in the system first tested in Japan later that year.
Japan 2007 was such poor weather that technically it should not have started at that time at all. Even it starting under safety car on extreme wets was technically invalidating the insurance at the track. This was because the weather was so poor that there was no way to reach the nearest hospital in the prescribed 20 minutes (the medical helicopter initially couldn’t launch, then wouldn’t have been able to land at the hospital). The moment the weather was compatible with the helicopter doing the complete journey, the safety car left the track and it was already time to swap to intermediates. (Ferrari hadn’t been convinced the water level itself needed extreme wets in the first place, but Charlie Whiting knew that not every driver was Kimi Raikkonen).
You are correct to say the communication system was a total shambles. It was later discovered that there’d been a technical fault, so Ferrari was right to say it hadn’t received the message despite everyone else having done so.
MazdaChris (@mazdachris)
7th March 2025, 11:57
Japan 2014 might have had a different outcome if this rule was used as well..
Alianora La Canta (@alianora-la-canta)
7th March 2025, 22:59
@mazdachris Japan 2014 was run to the “extreme wet tyre under Safety Car start regulation”, everyone abided by it, not that this prevented spins under the Safety Car. This perhaps should have been a clue in retrospect that the start should not have begun under such heavy rain.
Cdfemke
6th March 2025, 17:31
Now prohibit working on cars during red flag situartons, no more free getting out of jail for front runners coming from the back when it rains
Coventry Climax
6th March 2025, 23:39
Absolutely agree with that. A red flag means either race ended or suspended.
If the race is to be resumed, repairs -if necessary- can be done after the restart. That might mean some won’t be able to join the the restart; fine.
As far as tyre changes are concerned, I can understand that some might have run over debris and have damaged their tyres. Fine, change them for safety reasons, but the mandatory tyre changes must be done under racing conditions, which being under red isn’t.
And I’d like to add: No more cars unlapping themselves under safety car conditions please. That’s as much of a free ride as counting a tyre change under red is.
AlexS
6th March 2025, 23:59
How that is different from a car losing its time advantage due to a safety car?
When F1 was primarily a sport the times were added, and with current technology(GPS etc) would be possible to restart a race in their relative positions.
Alianora La Canta (@alianora-la-canta)
7th March 2025, 23:00
This should not happen, given the risk of damage as cars coming back to the pits through no fault of their own (let alone the risk of people being made to start on damaged or punctured tyres).
Luke Longnecker
7th March 2025, 2:26
“Teams must park damaged cars immediately”
This one bothers me the most. There have been so many amazing moments in history that might have been ruined if officials had intervened.
AlanD
7th March 2025, 13:58
I agree, but it also bugs me the number of times that teams have told drivers to “stop immediately, switch off the engine” and stop somewhere which causes a yellow flag and a problem for the stewards retrieving the car. I think the rule is potentially okay if they use common sense and make the driver park the car somewhere safe and off track, but “FIA stewards” and “common sense” don’t normally come up in the same breath.
Alianora La Canta (@alianora-la-canta)
7th March 2025, 23:01
AlanD, I don’t see anything in the regulation that would allow such specific instruction. They can either order the car to be parked in the nearest relatively safe place, or require it to return to the pits.