No advantage, just safety: FIA details new F1 start plan

Formula 1 is set to experiment with a new race start procedure during practice at the Miami Grand Prix, with the FIA aiming to improve safety without altering the competitive balance of the sport.

The FIA’s single-seater director Nikolas Tombazis has outlined how the system will work and why it is being introduced.

The concept is simple in principle: use the car's electric motor (MGU-K) to provide an emergency boost of power if the onboard systems detect a catastrophic failure at the lights.

By helping a stalled or slow-moving car reach a safer velocity more quickly, the FIA hopes to reduce the risk of high-speed rear-end collisions on the opening lap.

Converting disaster into a "bad" start

Tombazis clarified that this system is a protective measure, not a performance enhancer. The technology is programmed to recognize the difference between a slightly sluggish getaway and a total mechanical bog-down.

“Basically, there's a detection of how well the car is accelerating after small amount of time after the start,” Tombazis explained.

“And if that is below a certain threshold, then it kicks in. Just to give you reference points, I think it would have intervened this year on two or three occasions total. I don't think it would have intervened, for example, with Verstappen’s bad start [in China].”

According to Tombazis, the threshold for intervention is high. While a driver might lose a few positions with a regular poor start, the system only activates during true emergencies.

“It would have certainly intervened in Liam Lawson start in Australia, no doubt about that. I think the Verstappen start in China would not have been in that threshold of intervention,” he added.

Discouraging "funny games"

A primary concern among fans and teams is whether drivers could manipulate the system to gain an advantage. Tombazis was firm in stating that the MGU-K assistance is calibrated so that the driver is still left at a disadvantage compared to a normal start.

"Well, we made it clear that that first of all, this is not supposed to be a mechanism whereby people would be, let's say, even tempted to do it on purpose, if you know what I mean, to come up better off,” he said.

“So what this would convert is a disastrous start to a bad one. It would not convert a bad one to a good one."

Initially, the FIA considered harsh penalties for any driver whose system activated, but the teams argued that the lost positions would be punishment enough.

“And indeed, when we first discussed this option with the teams we proposed that if this mechanism kicked in for any car, they would have to do a drive through at the end of lap one, in order to completely discourage any funny games,” Tombazis revealed.

“The universal position of all the teams was that when they are in that scenario, they're already out of their control and definitely in a bad place, and therefore that would not be necessary. And we accepted that.

“But if we see that for whatever reason we've missed something, and people started using it for advantage, then we would, of course, intervene. But we don't think that's the case.”

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For the Miami weekend, the system will be strictly limited to practice starts during the 90-minute Friday session. The FIA will use the Sprint and the Grand Prix to gather data before a full rollout later this year.

“We'll be monitoring the real starts and see what would have happened, but there will be some starts in the free practice in these races,” Tombazis concluded.

“Much as we've decided to do that, we want to do a few more trial runs before we introduce it at the start of the race. So it will not be available in Miami at the start of the race.”

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