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FIA clarifies permitted driver messages

The FIA has issued clarifications to the permitted driver messages in the wake of Nico Rosberg's penalty at the British Grand Prix.

Rosberg was handed a ten-second time penalty after the race at Silverstone after Mercedes told him to avoid seventh gear as a result of a gearbox problem. With many team bosses - including Red Bull's Christian Horner and Haas team principal Guenther Steiner - calling for clarity regarding radio messages, the FIA has issued a further technical directive ahead of the Hungarian Grand Prix.

TD/038-16 clarifies the restrictions apply "at all times the car is out of the pit lane with the engine running and the driver on board", allowing teams to pass further messages to the driver during pit stops.

The new restrictions permit teams to inform the driver of an "indication of a problem with the car", but adds "any message of this sort must include an irreversible instruction to enter the pits to rectify the problem or to retire the car."

Teams are also permitted to give drivers "information concerning damage to the bodywork of the car" as well as "instructions to select driver defaults, this must be for the sole purpose of mitigating loss of function of a sensor, actuator or controller whose degradation or failure was not detected and handled by the on-board software."

The FIA adds: "It will be the responsibility of any team giving any such instruction to satisfy the FIA technical delegate that this was the case and that any new setting chosen in this way did not enhance the performance of the car beyond that prior to the loss of function (see Article 8.2.4 of the Technical Regulations)."

The new technical directive on team-to-driver communications is applicable with immediate effect.

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.