Formula One has backtracked on a planned clampdown on radio and pitboard messages for reasons of fairness but remains determined to end driver ‘coaching’ during races.
Teams will be allowed to send messages relating to car performance in tomorrow’s Singapore GP but from next season they will follow those concerning driver performance onto the banned list.
After a meeting at the Italian GP two weeks ago, the International Automobile Federation (FIA) opted to ban messages on both topics but decided after speaking with team managers in Singapore that more time was required.
“When one looks into it in more detail it became quite clear that some teams would be at a serious disadvantage compared to others,” FIA director Charlie Whiting said.
“Not just in their new knowhow or their ability to react in the short term, but also in hardware choices that were made a year ago.
“The two types of dashboards that are available to the teams, one will simply show a great deal more than the other,” he added.
“So for fairness we felt with the benefit of hindsight it would be better to introduce it in two stages and that is what we have done.”
Asked why the FIA had not simply waited for the final six races of the 2014 campaign to pass before implementing the new rules, Whiting said the FIA couldn’t stand by if rules were clearly being broken.