FIA meets drivers: Extra cooling in hot conditions
F1 News
- Ludo van Denderen
Good news for drivers during extremely hot conditions. Teams will be required to provide extra cooling during extreme conditions. This change is part of a new safety initiative.
Indeed, the FIA is going to have the right to issue an emergency regulation if the temperature or humidity is exceptionally high. In that case, teams will have to make sure their drivers have extra cooling options. Nikolas Tombazis, the Single Seater Director at the FIA, reveals this to Motorsport.com. He states that this will add some two kilos of extra weight to the cars, as cooling needs to be implemented.
Teams previously foresaw problems
The new system has already been approved by the F1 commission. The system will come into use as early as the '24 season. Incidentally, such a system was considered before but met with opposition from the teams. Namely, they feared it would cause aerodynamic problems if additional ballast space had to be created.
Incidentally, the FIA wants to stress that the extra cooling should only be used for the driver. So it is not allowed to secretly cool the cars with it in high temperatures. Anyway: the drivers will no doubt welcome the news. They struggled at the Grands Prix of Miami, Singapore and certainly Qatar last season because of the enormous heat.
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