The FIA detailed regarding track limits, DRS zones, circuit changes and stewards of Las Vegas GP, as F1 drivers react to news of race director and GPDA letter.
The track limits remains the white lines in the first FIA Race Director’s note from Rui Marques – who is replacing Niels Wittich in the role from this weekend’s F1 Las Vegas GP. In terms of the DRS zones, the first detection zone is 10m after Turn 2, whose activation is 20m after Turn 4.
The second activation zone is 710m after Turn 12, while there is a small change in the activation which is at 870m – as opposed to 820m in 2023 – before Turn 14. Moving on to the FIA stewards panel, it will be headed by Nish Shetty, who will get the support of Matthew Selley, Vitantonio Liuzzi and Dennis Dean.
The FIA also listed the changes to circuit from 2023 to 2024, they are –
- Walls at Pit Entry on RHS realigned.
- 2 gates in Pit Wall relocated.
- MP 9.9 moved upstream.
- MP 12.9 moved upstream.
- MP 13.1 moved upstream.
- Vehicle opening removed at MP 13.1.
- MP 13.2 moved upstream.
- Vehicle opening installed at exit Turn 15 on RHS.
- Grinding of the asphalt at the exit of Turn 12
The F1 drivers, though, had a busy media day answering about the FIA Race Director change from Wittich to Marques, as almost all of them were left surprised by the decision. They acknowledged the work done by the outgoing director and found him to have done a decent enough job.
There were some hiccups but it was overall okay, which left them a bit confused about the FIA’s decision. But they extended their support in welcoming Marques, who is more or less new to every driver on the grid. The F1 drivers also expanded on the GPDA letter that was made public.
They noted of no response until now from the FIA, but they are not too impatient about it for now. Some of the drivers – especially George Russell – explained the need of the letter and public push to get things done or make people aware of their opinions in a transparent way.
Race director change –
George Russell: “Yeah, we definitely weren’t aware. It was a bit of a surprise, I think, for everybody. And, you know, it’s a hell of a lot of pressure now onto the new race director. Just three races left. So I think for us… Often as drivers, we probably feel like we’re the last to find out this sort of information. And when it involves us kind of directly, it would be nice to be kept in the loop and just have an understanding of what decisions are being made. So, yeah, time will tell. I’m sure the new guy will handle the position just fine, but definitely not an easy race for a new race director.
“I mean, I can only talk on behalf of myself here as opposed to any of the other drivers, but I think there’s no secret that some were not happy with what was going on in terms of the decisions that were being made, but at the end of the day, I think if you worked together with us, that we could have helped improve the matter. And I think sometimes just hiring and firing is not the solution. You kind of need to work together to improve the problem. So, let’s see what this new era is going to bring, but every time there is a change, you have to take one step back before you make the two steps forwards.”
Kevin Magnussen: “I think it’s… I don’t know if it’s a big concern as such. I think it’s a tough job and you know it’s something… It’s a job that requires experience and to be honest I don’t know how experienced the new guy is. I know he’s come from F2 and F3, so he must have some experience. Hopefully he’s going to be fine. I think we all, certainly I do, tend to compare to the Charlie Whiting days that certainly for us drivers, he was someone that we felt really connected to and always felt like we were being listened to, whereas now it sort of seems like it’s a lot of us against them almost and it should definitely be more of a cooperation and a closer connection between us and them because we can help each other a lot. So hopefully the new guy will sort of help go in that direction.”
Esteban Ocon: “Yeah, I mean, as George said before, I think it’s definitely not an easy race to start in, around here, you know, as a street circuit. But I think Rui, he came from Macau just now, so it’s probably a tougher circuit than here, definitely. And yeah, looking forward to meet him and have good chats at the drivers meeting with him and seeing how he works. I’m sure we are going to be talking a lot on how he does things, what ideas he has on, very important topics to us like track limits, kerbs, etc. Everybody has his way of doing things. And yeah, we need to obviously communicate well in terms of what we feel is very important going forward.”
Lando Norris: “Yeah. Their job is tough. I don’t think people realise how tough it is. You know, as drivers we always give… I mean, we give everyone a lot of abuse, you know, half the time! So it’s probably one of the hardest sports to police in the world, I think. I don’t know of every other sport, but I think it’s a sport where there’s so many things can happen. You want rules, but you also don’t want rules. And that makes it very tough. And you’re always going to have people that disagree and people that agree. So I think it’s just a very tough position to be in. I don’t know what’s going on there. Obviously things are not running as smoothly as what we would want.
“But as such a big sport, like the majority and pretty much every other sports, you have permanent stewards, you have permanent people, you have a permanent team that run everything for consistency and many other reasons. That’s all I know. Yeah, that’s what we want as drivers. That’s what we request. But we also acknowledge it’s a very tough position to be in and to put yourself up for that role in the first place, I think, takes a bit of guts because you know you’re going to get crap from every side at some point, and you’ve got to accept that. You’ve got to be willing to accept that. I don’t think that’s easy for anyone to do. We’ll see, but I don’t know anything more, honestly.”
Valtteri Bottas: “Not so much, much more to add, actually. It’s a difficult job and for sure for the new person it will be a challenge. And especially with both titles still in play and everything. So I just hope things go smoothly. But yeah, we really don’t, as drivers, we don’t really have much background information why this happened, what was the decision to do this. So I guess we will get more details in the drivers’ meeting.”
Max Verstappen: “I read the news, I just continued with my day. Of course, it’s a bit weird with three races to do that. It doesn’t matter if you are positive or negative about certain things which I thought in Brazil, there was certainly room for improvement, for example. It is still a bit weird to having to deal with a different race director. If you want to change normally a race director, maybe you would do it after the season, and then you have a bit of time for the race director himself to get up to speed with things. You have pre-season testing, you get into your role a bit more. But lets see how it goes, I mean, they have decided and we have to deal with it. We don’t agree between the drivers as well, so doesn’t matter [with race director change].”
Charles Leclerc: “That came out a bit of nowhere. I found out on social media. I think we were all surprised. I think more than speaking about the decision, which we can all have our own opinion, I think the timing was a bit surprising and to do it so late in the season at such a crucial moment of the season. Could have probably been managed in a better way. But apart from that, it doesn’t change our relationship with the FIA, it is obviously a continuous process of trying to make that relationship and that discussion better in order to make our sport better. And yeah, there are things to improve for sure and we are trying to work with the FIA to make it better. But yeah, I was quite surprised with the timing.”
Carlos Sainz: “Obviously surprised, bit strange with three races to finish in the year, to suddenly change race directors. But as I don’t know what happened and I don’t know what’s going on. I can’t give an opinion, I can only adapt to what comes next, just thank Niels for the hard work over the last three years and wish him all the best and welcome to the new one. It is extremely important that co-operation that collaboration between racing drivers and race director. I mean, a lot of decisions that the race director takes are influenced by the feedback that we give about the track, the conditions, everything.
“Obviously, just kindly asking from here that the new one is to be open-minded, to listen to us, and to appreciate our feedback, because if we say things with the intention of changing the track something, or we say, communicate something on the radio, is because we truly believe that. So just asking for co-operation, collaboration, open relationship and everything should be smooth and wishing the best because it is tough job and he’s been given a very tough task which is to come into a championship with only three races left. The only effect in the changes is the race director but if he does a good job, should be transparent also, nothing more.”
Oscar Piastri: “I had no idea that anything was even being planned. I actually heard it from someone else, one of the other drivers, or an article somewhere. So it was definitely a bit of a bit of a surprise. On the whole, Niels was doing a reasonable job. There were some things that we wanted to improve. Some got better, some maybe didn’t, but I certainly don’t think it warranted an immediate sacking. I don’t know how it [the statement] was phrased, but it seems like a bit of a different picture than how it was phrased. I don’t know, we will see how’s the new race director is like. I have not had any experience with him before but yeah, it is definitely a surprise.”
Pierre Gasly: “I know what I have to do in the car, it doesn’t really change my approach to racing. There are clear rules on what you can do, what you can’t do, and whoever is there is there is going to apply to this rule. So it doesn’t really change.”
Lance Stroll: “I think everyone’s surprised about that. It doesn’t change my approach on the track – just maybe penalties and all that will be done in different ways now, hopefully for the better.”
Fernando Alonso: “I was surprised. I read the news, as you all did. I don’t have any other information about it apart from the press release. We’ll see tomorrow in the drivers’ briefing, the new race director. We’ll try to be supportive. We’ll try to help him as much as we can in anything that he may need. Hopefully we’ll have a long relationship with this new race director and get things better and better for the future. Nothing changes, I think if the FIA made that decision because they trust the new guy and they feel that he’s ready for the job, it is not an easy task, so that’s why as I said before, we have to be mindful of that, we have to be ready to help if he needs anything, we need to be clear in the drivers’ briefing that we are here as one and try to help, that’s the main thing and I am sure he’s ready because FIA will not take a decision if they don’t think he’s ready.”
Alexander Albon: “It was a surprise to myself. Niels had one of the hardest jobs in the paddock, and I thought he was doing a good job with it as well. I think he was balancing the whole the whole thing as best as he could. To comment on the change, it’s not really my position, but I felt like he was more than capable to do the last three races.”
Nico Hulkenberg: It sure is [strange timing to change the race director]. I think also he did a decent and good job, he was pretty straight with things. I don’t know the background, I don’t know the reason. I think it is a surprise for most in the paddock and that all I can say. Eventually, you always get used to someone, now someone new, it is like quirking with a different team or engineers, it will take time to get used to each other, get his handwriting a little bit, but obviously, it doesn’t really affect us on track and what we do, but he might have a different reading how to deploy a VSC or red flag. Obviously, humans are different, so I am sure there will be slight differences.”
Lewis Hamilton: “I can’t speak for other drivers, I mean we are in the GPDA meeting, we probably are going to be talking about that except for the Niels thing, because consistency is something we are always asking for. At the moment it feels like everything is falling apart with all the people leaving left, right, and center, but sometimes you need to shake the tree to have some of the apples fall out!”
GPDA letter –
George Russell: “I mean, talking as a fellow driver as opposed to sort of my role with the GPDA, I think everybody felt with certain things that have happened over the course of this year that we wanted to sort of stand united. At the end of the day, we just want to be transparent with the FIA and have this dialogue that is happening, and I think the departure of Niels is also a prime example of not being a part of these conversations. And ultimately, we only we want to work with the FIA to make the best for the sport that we all love. So, I think it’s kind of us now putting the pressure back on them to work with us and work with everyone, including F1 as well, just to maximise this opportunity, which Formula 1 is in at the moment, which is, you know, an amazing time to be a part of. I think ultimately for us, when we were hearing from the FIA a couple of years ago, when it came to the Presidential elections, they were talking about transparency, talking about where the money is going to be reinvested into grassroots racing, which we’re all in favour for.
“And of course, when it comes to some of these large fines, there’s a number of drivers on the grid who can comfortably afford these fines. There’s maybe some rookies on the grid that if they’re handed a $1 million fine, you know, they can’t afford this. But if we know where that’s being sort of reinvested and if it’s going into grassroots or into some training programs, then we get it. As I said, I think we just want the transparency and understanding of what was promised from the beginning. I mean, I’m not too sure to be honest. We recognise everybody’s working as hard as they can to do the best job possible. There is obviously a huge amount of change within the FIA quite regularly, so it’s clearly not the most stable of places. And maybe that’s why it’s been a bit challenging to get some of the changes that we’ve wanted implemented. Of course, everyone has their own side to their own story. But as I said, I think if we feel that we’re being listened to and some of the changes that we are experiencing, requesting, are implemented, because ultimately we’re only doing it for the benefit of the sport, then maybe our confidence will increase.
“But yeah, I think there’s a number of drivers who feel probably a bit fed up with the whole situation. And it only seems to be going in, to a degree, the wrong direction. It’s definitely not difficult to get a sit down, but I think getting things to change or getting promises upheld seems slightly more challenging. So, it’s maybe the FIA or the president didn’t recognise how seriously we all felt. So I think that’s why over the course of 20 races this year and also even last year we spoke about a number of topics, all of the drivers, we all feel pretty similar. We all know what we want from the sport and the direction it’s been heading and we probably feel that we want to do a small U-turn on a number of topics and just want to work together with the FIA on this. And that’s just what we’ve felt has not been happening at all, at least directly from the President. And no. Not at the moment [there’s no response], which I’m a little bit surprised about, to be fair. But maybe there’ll be something to come. Who knows?”
Max Verstappen: “You have to ask the FIA about that [response to GPDA letter]. I don’t know. From my side, it’s difficult to comment. At the moment, I don’t know. I don’t know what to expect. I think there is also a lot going on, right? So I don’t really want to make an issue of it. I think they also had a lot on their mind in the meantime.”
Charles Leclerc: “I think we are very confident that they are trying their best. I mean on the sporting side, it is just the continuous discussion of trying to make sport for better. I think there’s been some other decisions with this letter that we tackle because we thought it was important to be so in the way we speak about different situations. We should be free to say the way we want. And this subject that we wanted to speak of, but on the sporting side, I have no doubt that they are trying to do their best and very confident. They are trying to improve like we do and we are trying to help them improve and give them a slightly different perspective to what they see because we are obviously in the car.”
Oscar Piastri: “I think with things like that, we are not necessarily need to be told like that. I think when it comes to things like tracks and kerbs changes, or re-surfacing or things that are directly going to affect us on the track, in particular regarding safety, those are the kind of big things that we are kind of being vocal about, wanting more clarity and collaboration on. In terms of the race director, yes, some warning may have been good or reasoning but I don’t think it is end of the world that we found out through media. Obviously, we put out the letter and kind of addressed how big things we want to improve our collaboration with the FIA on, but I think with that matter, it is not a big concern.”
Fernando Alonso: “I think it is good, it is normal like all the other sports where athletes or promoters or whoever, they have sometimes different opinions, you express those opinions. F1 is very mediating in everything, being in media, sometimes you have the set-up and sometimes you have to use that, this is the moment. Nothing that is written sometimes, nothing that is published from our side or the FIA is a secret between us, it is something that we talk in person with them and we express our opinion as well. I think there is nothing really terribly wrong but we want to improve things.
“From our side and the FIA, what we expect from them is always to take care of our safety which they do, last example was Brazil as well, where all this red flag and these kind of things, we have to make sure that the circuits are well prepared, safe to run. We had last year in Las Vegas, the FP1 problem that the FIA is taking care to not repeat the same things. I think it is all good, we trust them, the trust of what we say and what we want and we try to move ahead together.”
Alexander Albon: “I think that’s more for you to say than us, you know that there’s a lot of politics going around our sport. We have our voice and we stated that in the letter, so that’s where we have our part of speech, we raise areas where we are not happy with. The things going on behind, regarding Niels and what not, is not really our concern. Not that I know of [if FIA has replied], I need to speak with George, he’s a bit of our headmaster in all of us, now nothing. We feel like, we just say and put it out there is when most action happens, so that’s it.”
Nico Hulkenberg: “Not sure to be honest, there was a lot of chat [in GPDA Whatsapp] last week because sometimes there is so much that you can’t catch-up with all the stuff. So, I am not sure. Reply from the FIA? Not that I know. I need to check, maybe something happened that I am not aware.
Lewis Hamilton: “If we don’t get a response, I’m sure we’ll chase them up. I know they’ve got a lot going on at the moment, but I think it’s just to show that more than ever, the drivers are united, which is perhaps not something you’ve always seen in the past. There are some things that need addressing, and FIA needs to be better at working and collaborating with us. We want the sport to continue to thrive and be better. We have zero to gain with the comments that we’re making in terms of things that can be better through the race weekends, and all we’re asking is to communicate with us more and include us.”
Here’s FIA Race Directors’ note in full: https://www.fia.com/sites/default/files/decision-document/2024%20Las%20Vegas%20Grand%20Prix%20-%20Event%20notes%20.pdf
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Here’s news on Niels Wittich
Here’s more on GPDA letter
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