Perez and Maldonado, however, question timing of new restrictions while Caterham's Ericsson flags up problems for teams who still use old-style steering wheels
Thursday 18 September 2014 13:11, UK
Formula 1’s drivers are braced for an increase in their workload in the cockpit in Singapore following the clampdown on team radio, but are confident they will quickly adjust to the new restrictions.
From Friday practice onwards at Marina Bay drivers will have to complete the sessions without as much input from their race engineers over the pit-to-car radio following the FIA’s decision to more stringently enforce Article 20.1 of the Sporting Regulations, which states that “the driver must drive the car alone and unaided”.
While basic communications from the pitwall related to pit strategy and gaps to other cars are still permitted, drivers are now not allowed to be told things related to performance, such as power unit settings or the status of fuel saving.
The immediate changes naturally proved the main topic of discussion when the paddock convened in Singapore on Thursday and, by and large, the drivers were largely unruffled by the new interpretation.
Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso claimed he and his engineer rarely discussed items on the now-prohibited list of messages anyway, and predicted that the changes will have little material effect on competiveness or driver performance through the grid.
“No big difference to be honest, that’s it’s going to have a huge impact in the race itself or the weekend preparations, at least in our case,” the Spaniard told reporters.
“We’ve never used the radio for any performance reasons or something like that. Just to control temperatures, to talk about traffic or decide strategies. In our case it won’t have a big impact; other teams, I don’t know how exactly they use the radio, for what purpose.
“Talking about the general rule itself, [there’s] a lot of media attention like the FRIC ban but then the final impact from the race results was not anything special. Here will be similar.
“You can talk with your players if you’re a coach in football or basketball. But at the end it’s the player that shoots the ball – or the driver that drives the car.
“Some recommendations or whatever won’t change the driving style.”
Appearing in the Drivers’ Press Conference, Force India’s Sergio Perez admitted that while the timing of the change was odd, coming as it does six races before the end of the season, drivers would adjust to the relative radio silence.
“I don’t think it’s ideal that suddenly from one race to another they change it dramatically that you cannot get certain calls. But it doesn’t influence that much,” Perez said.
“I don’t see it as a big deal. It’s sometime we as drivers need to get more used to. We will have definitely more information and we’re going to be a bit busier throughout the race to basically keep everything under control, fuel loads and engine modes and all that kind of stuff. I don’t see a problem to get used to it, it’s just a dramatic change from the last race to this one.”
While Lotus’s Pastor Maldonado suggested the changes in this year of all years was not exactly ideal– “for sure it’s not the greatest thing, especially with all the complex systems we have at the moment,” the Venezuelan admitted – Ferrari’s famously reticent Kimi Raikkonen said things would be trickier for drivers when their cars started playing up.
“Obviously we don’t speak a lot on the radio in my case when there’s no issues,” acknowledged the Finn, who memorably told his race engineer when a Lotus driver at the 2012 Abu Dhabi GP to “leave me alone I know what I’m doing”.
“But it might get quite complicated if there are some problems with the car and you have to change certain things to try to finish the race. I don’t know how the rule goes on those times, obviously it makes it more complicated for us, but it’s part of the game so it’s okay.”
Although Alonso played down the effect the changes would have on driver performance from this weekend, logic would suggest that if there are to be any negative consequences then it would likely be for the grid’s more inexperienced drivers given they are less familiar with F1 machinery.
But contrary to such thinking, Caterham rookie Marcus Ericsson proved one of the most enthusiastic supporters of the new guidelines on Thursday.
However, the 24-year-old pointed out one handicap for the backmarker team – the fact they are one of a handful of teams, which include Red Bull and Lotus, which continue to run without one of the new-for-2014 steering wheels with large LCD display.
Following the switch to more complicated turbo power units this year, teams had the option to start using the large McLaren Applied Technology designs which are capable of displaying significantly more data than the older models.
“I like the idea to be honest. It’s good to get the drivers more in focus,” Ericsson enthused.
“Just for us, as a small team, it’s trickier because our steering wheel, we don’t have a big display. A lot of the other teams have a big display so they can show a lot of stuff on this, whereas we have a very small one.
“So it will be a bit more tricky, but I like the idea.”
Here's the steering wheel with the large LCD display used by the majority of teams, including championship leaders Mercedes:
And here's the more basic display still used by Lotus, Red Bull, Williams and Caterham:
The 2014 Singapore GP is live only on Sky Sports F1 this weekend, with our coverage beginning with Practice from 10.45am on Friday.
