Formula 1 pre season is gearing up and a lot of changes had happen, for the most part I think they are positive and others a bit questionable so lets start with the calendar.
Formula 1 Calendar 2024
CHINA IS BACK!! yes the China - Shanghai GP is back so now its 24 races, right after the Japan GP that have move from October to April, helps with the rain; so its going to be an Asian special on April, early this year, changes on the logistics are very positive, next logistic change is Qatar, who would have told FIA does listen when thousands of fans go on social media and "gently" ask them to get things right after some drivers almost went nugget Mcchiken and got fried inside the car due to the heat so Qatar has been move to November right after the Abudhabi GP when temperatures are suppose to be cooler. Some of the logistics are still over the place but from the show perspective you cant have all three USA GP one after another, after China you go Miami then Imola crazy but thats the way.
- Preseason reduce by half an hour each day.
- Pirelli can ask for 40 days of testing per car, thats 5 days increase from 2023.
- Spray reduction is a priority moving forward, there will more testing.
- Development of 2026 cars can only start after January 2, 2025; before just brake system.
Components & Rule Enforcement
Ferrari this is bad news if you continue loosing parts during races, components that can be use without penalty have been reduce to 3 engines, 3 MGU-H, 3 MGU-K and 3 turbochargers so teams better keep their reliability tighter than last year if they dont want to be penalize early during 2024.
There were all kind of rumors and inconsistencies last year when it comes to work on cars before race, Merc; and after race testing sadly Merc again. Remember how Mercedes kept working on their floor desperatly when the car kept bouncing all over the place at before side pods were a thing again, well they had a penalty for working after practice on the car and if I'm not mistaken Red Bull did too at some point, teams do this on desperate situations, FIA has added four exceptions to work on cars before free practice "wo in the period from 42 to 29 hours before FP1, and two for the phase from 18 to 4 hours before FP1" at the same time cars will no longer be sealed by FIA after FP2.
The USA Texas GP end up a bit sour for Ferrari and Mercedes after both of their top drivers got disqualify, FIA randomly select at least three cars for testing things like bottom plank wear and tear, fuel, wings, etc but this was random so many fans mention that if that many fail the test then probably the rest would, it was unfair that they did not test more or all cars, for now the FIA has mention they will test "certain cars" but no more details have been giving out, not sure what they mean about certain but I hope this is to tone down the controversy around after race testing and regulations.
Quali & Sprint Race
This is a very split topic since I have heard people talking about how much they enjoy Sprint races although from what I have notice this are people who cant stand an entire race most of the time so they looking for a shorter result, touche FIA you did it. So far it still on the table if things are going to change but I don't think so it makes total sense to have a Sprint Race on certain races to attract more viewers and at least they haven't come back with the idea of taking practices away but FIA did make an anouncement about the tires allow to use during Quali, the "ATA" format is gone, on 2023 FIA require drivers to use Hard Tires in Q1, Medium in Q2 and Soft in Q3 leaving drivers without a set or two after trying their best to qualify, instead on 2024 there will be 13 sets of tires per driver on regular weekend when there is no Sprint Race and 12 sets on weekends with Sprint Race. There is one rule change going around that is the inverse grid and I think that would spice things up way more than a Sprint Race, say an inverse grid Sprint Race?? I think it would bring some balance to the championship specially when you have Red Bull wining 22 out of 23 races in a season, Max alone won 19.
2024 is going to be a very very exciting season in my opinion since towards the end of the year more teams were catching up Red Bull, but they could also be sand baging, nothing new on F1 and it does look like towards the end of the year they lower down the guard, Red Bull mention last season that they have not touch the car since the season restart thats is August and still had that massive advantage that was gradually reducing but still. Teams like Mercedes and Ferrari are doing structural changes to their cars in an attempt to catch up and McLaren who was probably closer than others might remain the same and keep improving, the surprise of the mid grid could be Racing Bulls aka Alpha Tauri, they now have a new name and reported last year that for season 2024 they would get most of the RB20 parts, they already had the suspension and we saw a massive inprovement on the car so may be Ricchiardo could fight for a third place? lets not formet Aston Martin, there have been rumors that their car is doing great on testing again but its too soon to make conclusions, imagination and hope does fly too close to the sun.
