The FIA shared details about F1 Chinese GP in terms of the DRS zones, changes made to circuit, stewards names and more.
Ahead of the F1 Chinese GP weekend, the FIA gave leeway to selected teams after delay in freight arrival to China from Australia. The curfew time was changed to allow teams prepare well on the tyre side with Pirelli. In terms of the Race Directors’ note, the track limits remained white lines around the circuit.
But there was one major change from the 2024 event, where the whole track was resurfaced after complains last year. Considering that it is a sprint weekend, it remains to be seen how aligned they are in just one practice session before getting into the thick of things.
The list of changes are –
- The track has been fully resurfaced.
- Combination kerb at Turns 2, 6, 10, 11 and 16 apex.
- Blue line added to turns 6, 9, 10, 14 and 16.
- Reposition the white line at turns 10 and 16.
Looking at the DRS zones, the detection for the first one lay at Turn 12 whose activation is to be 375m after Turn 13. At the same time, the detection for the second one lay at 35m before Turn 16, with the activation being 98m after Turn 16.
In terms of the FIA stewards panel, Nish Shetty would lead the pack of Dr. Gerd Ennser, Pedro Lamy and Zheng Honghai. The F1 Chinese GP weekend will also see new directive regarding the rear wing testing as introduced between the weekends.
The FIA will be undertaking load test to check if teams are adhering to the new directive. At this juncture, most of the teams have noted that they are not on the target list, but reports have linked it to four teams which includes some outfits, who have said otherwise.
Here’s what some of the F1 drivers said –
Lando Norris: “Nope. We don’t have to change anything. Ours is fine. In fact, ours was probably too good, and we probably weren’t pushing the limits enough, honestly. If this technical directive had been applied last weekend, we would’ve been fine. It’s not directed at us—it seems to be directed other teams. Yeah, which probably means we should push it a little bit more.”
Charles Leclerc: “Same like them (that we don’t have to change anything). I don’t know (who is it for), I really don’t know.”
Max Verstappen: “Honestly, like, I have no idea (about rear wing of McLaren). I don’t want to think about it also. We can speculate about it, I am just focused on what I need to do here with the team. That is the only think that we can control.”
George Russell: “I think what Lando said is correct. If the TD was there in Melbourne, they would certainly would have won the race, they are just so far ahead. It is not going to change anything from our side. I don’t know who the TD was introduced for but I am pretty confident that it wasn’t us or Red Bull, but I am also confident that the TD is going to hurt but it is not going to hurt them enough that would have any sort of impact on the result.”
Pierre Gasly: “Hopefully it is good for us. I mean, I think we’ll see this weekend what it does, over the next few weeks, who’s impacted from it, who isn’t. But, yeah, at the end of the day, it is for the team, won’t get too much drag into this. I am focusing on making sure that, we have the best performance of the package we have got.”
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