New FIA technical directives [TDs] have potentially created a fresh twist in how the remainining three quarters of the 2025 Formula 1 World Championship could play out.
The season has so far largely gone the way of the formbook, and therefore many pre-season predictions, with reigning Constructors’ Champions McLaren being the class of the field.
Prior to last Sunday’s Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, the Woking-based squad had taken five out of the six Grands Prix contested, enjoying a healthy lead in its battle to retain the Constructors’ crown.
Two key areas in car development, which has seemingly been a code only McLaren has been able to crack, have been clever interpretation of the rules via the flexi-wings, and tyre management.
The latter has drawn significant attention from many of its rivals, notably its biggest in the shape of Red Bull.
However, the Imola weekend saw the tables turn, with Max Verstappen taking a dominant victory for the team, a victory boss Christian Horner described being “the first I can remember in a long time we’ve had the pace to really pull away and out-deg the McLaren.”
It has since come to light that the sport’s governing body issued TDs prior to the Imola weekend, both of which will have made for interesting reading to the participating teams.
FIA plank and tyre TDs could make some F1 teams hit the skids
One of the FIA TDs centred around how exploitation has been made by some FIA teams in how they have been able to run a car as close to the ground as possible, without causing enough wear to the skid block to wear it beyond the required thickness to pass scrutiny.
This means that any teams that were previously performing such sorcery were required to raise its ride height at Imola, and will have to do so onwards.
The second TD was a clarification of methods to reducing tyre temperatures through water cooling is outlawed, issued via a communication exchange between the FIA and Red Bull, which has previously raised suspicion as to how McLaren has been able to utilise such a successful mangement of its tyres.
This news may inevitably lead many to believe that the TDs may have thwarted McLaren and its current progress on track, however it is widely believed within F1 that they played no significant part in how both its cars were left trailing in Verstappen’s wake.
TD018, the next technical directives from the scheduled to be issued, will come at next weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix, and it will lead to a change on the flexi-wings on the front of the cars, which has already led to excitable predictions as to which teams could benefit, and suffer, from it.
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