FLOYD ON F1: Are Red Bull’s wings being clipped?

Before I get into F1, allow me to tell you about something that’s always been a mystery to me. The popularity of radio or television soap operas.

As a youngster I was subjected to weekly, or sometimes daily, sagas, concerning the intricacies of other people’s lives at home or in the workplace. Many of these featured the daily rounds of the average fictional family right down to the most minute details of inane behaviour.

Many people enjoy such entertainment, but the need to ensure the listener or viewer remains loyal has led to scenarios stretching the imagination to a state of total incredulity. We would never waste our time following such pointless shenanigans, or would we?

Which takes us back to F1, the sport we all love and never fail to follow as fans. Last Sunday’s Styrian Grand Prix once more gave a strong indication that Red Bull currently has the upper hand. Max Verstappen’s lights to flag victory was an impressive display while the chasing Mercedes’ of Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas struggled for pace and grip.

Another lap and it could have been a third place for Verstappen’s team-mate Sergio Perez, if Red Bull’s pit stop gamble had not gone awry, losing valuable time for the Mexican.

It was an unusual occurrence for the Milton Keynes team, who took the record for a pit stop at 1.82 sec during the 2019 Brazilian Grand Prix. The team’s slick second stop for Verstappen at Paul Ricard two weeks ago gave him the undercut on Hamilton, to take victory in France.

It was interesting to hear Mercedes personnel informing a disappointed Hamilton, who found the Red Bull ahead as he rejoined the track, that “we will be looking into how that happened”. We were never party to the solution, but surely the pit stop played a role, despite being slower than Hamilton’s stop?

I could not believe the reports and media releases last week regarding the issuing, by the FIA, of a technical directive which warned teams of the tightening of regulations regarding F1 pit stop procedures and particularly equipment used to change wheels.

Article 12.8.4 of the technical regulations states: “Devices which are used to fit or remove wheel fasteners may only be powered by compressed air or nitrogen. Any sensor systems may only act passively.”

The governing body is concerned about safety so requires prescribed time frames for wheel change procedures. For example, for wheel nuts to be regarded as tightened this is seen as 0.15 sec gap before a signal can be given to a jack man to drop the car, at which point a further 0.2 sec must be allowed.

The directive continues. “For safety reasons we would expect the minimum time offset between the initiation of the jack release procedure and the OK signal to the driver given by the green light to be at least 0.2 sec.”

This decision is taken as the FIA is concerned the level of automation is at odds with human reaction times and therefore becomes a safety concern. The directive will come into force at the beginning of August for the Hungarian Grand Prix.

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Yet another ruling in F1 and I have to ask who will monitor and enforce it? After all, there are four wheel gunmen and around a further 18 other team members around the car during the stop. Some pundits have suggested this is just a further method of slowing down the Red Bull chase for the championship.

Surely not, but it certainly makes you think. We have had the issue of “bendy” rear wings, the possible manipulation of tyre pressures, the possibility of Honda engines being more than upgraded, all tossed in the general direction of Red Bull.

If you follow F1, it becomes the warped reality of the world you live in. To see the latest F1 standings, click here.