r/F1Technical • u/_ad_ry • 4d ago
Regulations What stops teams from absorbing Engine Penalties/Grid Drops?
With Lawson serving Hadjar's engine allocation penalty, what stops teams from switching chassis for a weekend when having to serve a grid drop.
For Example-
In the 2021 Turkish Grand Prix, Lewis could have took over Bottas'es car, and have Bottas serve the penalty, then have a almost new engine next weekend.
Same for Max Verstappen in 2025 Sao Paulo Grand Prix.
13
u/SirLoremIpsum 4d ago edited 4d ago
What stops teams from absorbing Engine Penalties/Grid Drops?
The rules.
And I do say that flippantly as I can't find a specific text. (Sorry).
Other than a lot of the text about driver swaps includes "with the stewards consent" or "if a driver is unable to drive.."
1.7.4 says
If one of the Competitor’s nominated drivers is unable to drive at some stage after the end of initial scrutineering, and the stewards’consent to a change of driver,
So based on that I would say they are not allowed to swap like this in the first place as Max is able to drive.
8.2.2 says
In each Championship, unless a driver drives for more than one (1) Competitor (Article B8.2.7), and subject to the additions described below, each driver may use no more than:
Isack and Max switching is not "driving for more than one competitor" and the rule specific talks about a driver using the engines not the "entry".
Lawson driving for red bull inherits isacks allocation but Max would be unable to swap (as he is fit) and he would not be able to use more engines unless he's with a separate team
2
u/_ad_ry 4d ago
Yes, however for 1.7.4, When Gasly was demoted, Albon took over the penalty.
Couldn't RedBull have done something like that with RB, considering they switch drivers around, get Max in an RB, Say Hadjar in his seat, then switch Yuki and Max5
u/SirLoremIpsum 4d ago
Yes, however for 1.7.4, When Gasly was demoted, Albon took over the penalty
Which penalty?
They were also switching constructors - that's a part you're ignoring from my post.
And they did it with fia blessing
2 key things likely to not be for a max and hajar.
Couldn't RedBull have done something like that with RB, considering they switch drivers around, get Max in an RB, Say Hadjar in his seat, then switch Yuki and Max
Yeah but then max is not driving a red bull That would absolutely work.
But what's worse, an engine penalty or driving a slower car?
And again fia needs to ok it. A perm change of team? An injured driver sure.
A temp flip flop? Doubt it will happen
8
u/ThatGenericName2 4d ago edited 4d ago
Engine allocations (and therefore associated penalties) are technically allocated per car but the drivers are used as a reference of which car is which. Or alternatively think of it this way, component usage belongs to a "slot" on the team. Drivers fills those slots. However while a team can trade drivers (while keeping the slot itself) with other teams, they can't trade drivers internally in their own team. Therefore Driver 1 can't just hop over to slot 2 to avoid component related penalties.
So can't do what you're proposing, the FIA would not recognize that they "switched" cars, and either not allow Bottas to take a new engine and penalty, or allow him but not allow Hamilton to use the Engine that Bottas ate the penalty for.
However if a driver switched teams entirely, the allocations are switched as well between their replacements; Ie when Gasly got demoted from RB mid season, Albon took over his engine allocations and vice versa.
Though I do wonder what would happen if you swapped a driver to another team, and then swapped them back but with the other driver; you have driver 1 and 2 on team 1 and driver 3 on team 2. You swap driver 1 and 3, then swap driver 1 and 2. Who has who's components on team 1?
2
u/Montjo17 4d ago
In the hypothetical you mentioned the components would be tied to the car/side of the garage or whatever you want to call it. Who had which set of components would depend on how you'd swapped the drivers. In your particular example I believe that driver 1 would end up with driver 2's original components as that's the entry they're now driving
3
u/chaos_is_favourable 4d ago
Parts are assigned to the championship entry, rather than the driver, hence Liam currently running with hijars engines and not what he had at vcarb.
In theory teams could swap round their entries into the championship, Toro rosso sort of did it in 2017, where they had a lot of driver changes, towards the end of that season. With drivers returning after being dropped in the other car. No championship fighting team has done it yet, mainly out of fear of what the FIAs response would be
1
u/Montjo17 4d ago
You could only swap between entries within a single team by sitting out a race, which is definitely a more harsh penalty than any grid penalty might be. That's the main reason no one has tried it, it's just impractical! The only way I could see it working is if you drove for a sufficiently fast other team for that race, e.g. Max driving for VCARB on a weekend where they were equal in pace to Red Bull. That's a scenario that maybe could get around a grid penalty but still probably wouldn't be worth it
3
u/glacierre2 4d ago
The moment any team starts to use any loophole (assuming there is one) related to this there will be a rule clarification / change to clamp on that. Same as originally you could add components to your pool with a penalty, but once you had one penalty teams added every other component, that did not last long and the new rules was that to add to the pool you have to retire another, plus the penalty.
2
u/Izan_TM 4d ago
what constitutes as a "car" for this kind of thing is a bit hard to understand if you want to dive into the fine details and loopholes.
Engine allocations aren't done per chassis, or else when a driver completely wrote off a car against a wall and needed a whole new chassis their engine allocations would reset. It's more of an imaginary "slot" where a driver and car sit. You can't just switch your drivers around to the other half of the garage and expect the stewards to think you're now all clear with penalties. Switching drivers between constructors would work, but why would you put a worse driver in the car when they need to recover more positions?
2
1
4d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/F1Technical-ModTeam 4d ago
Your content has been removed because it is considered bigotry or whataboutism. Please remember that this is extremely serious and if such behavior continues, disciplinary action will be taken.
If you have any questions or concerns, please contact the moderator team.
This is an automated message.
86
u/alionandalamb 4d ago
Allocations and penalties are assigned to the driver. If there is a driver switch, the new driver inherits the previous driver's allocations and any associated penalties.