A "fresh clampdown" on radio communications during Formula One races has been branded as "unnecessary" and "strange" by the drivers in the lead up to Sunday's season-opening Australian Grand Prix, according to Ian Ransom of REUTERS. The FIA will "restrict messaging between drivers and pit walls in a number of areas, including flagging up positions of other cars during qualifying, as part of a crackdown mooted nearly two years ago." Some team officials, including Mercedes Motorsport Exec Dir Toto Wolff, have "welcomed the move to put more race management and strategy in the drivers' hands," saying that it would make races "less predictable and more exciting." But McLaren's two-time world champion Fernando Alonso was "dismissive of the idea that drivers would have more control over their fate on track." Alonso said, "Instead of instinct from the driver, we will follow what we agreed two hours before the race. It's strange the direction that they are going. ... In the era of communication and technology, Formula One try to restrict it, which is probably not the normal way to go." Force India driver Sergio Perez said that he "could not see the point of the new restrictions." He said, "It just puts a lot of extra load to the driver. ... I hope the other teams and drivers can find it a bit harder, that would be great, but it doesn't change a lot" (REUTERS, 3/17).
BIG SPENDERS: AUTOSPORT's Ian Parkes reported Ferrari has emerged as "the biggest spender of power unit development tokens over the winter ahead of the new Formula 1 season." For this season "each of the four manufacturers" -- Ferrari, Mercedes, Renault and Honda -- has 32 tokens to use to develop its 1.6-litre V6 turbocharged hybrid system. Token spend ahead of Australian GP:
- Ferrari 23 (9 remaining)
- Honda 18 (14 remaining)
- Mercedes 19 (13 remaining)
- Renault 7 (25 remaining) (AUTOSPORT, 3/17).
PIRELLI CLIFF: AUTOSPORT's Lawrence Barretto reported Pirelli's plan to bring back the "cliff" in tire performance to Formula 1 in '16 "didn't work," according to Pirelli Motorsport Dir Paul Hembery. The F1 tire supplier "hoped to bring back the dramatic" tire drop-off seen in the past "as a way to keep teams on their toes strategically" in '16. Hembery: "That was the theory, that's what we were trying to do, but it hasn't worked at the level we wanted. We haven't seen the difference in terms of a cliff." Williams Chief Technical Officer Pat Symonds said that his team "could not tell a difference" between the tire drop-off in '16 compared to last year. Symonds: "It's quite peculiar. We went to Barcelona and thought, 'Well, let's see what we've got.' We ran some tires really a long way down and we didn't actually detect the cliff of performance" (
AUTOSPORT, 3/17).
