New Radio communication rules

[Hard Driver]

So the teams can't relay any performance data or engineering data to the drivers, only safety information. So Mercedes couldn't tell Hamilton how to turn off an alarm or Rosberg that he had picked up rubber in his brake duct and the front right caliper was overheating.

I understand the driver coaching ban they did last year, but car data and engineering data seems like taking this "can't help the drivers" thing too far. Don't like this new rule.

[WickerBill]

It's bad, and did you notice a distinct drop in the number of radio conversations played during the race? I love hearing those communications, and they've taken them away.

And I'm sorry, but a brake overheating is safety and they should have told him. In fact, same with the alarm. I would couch nearly everything I needed to tell the driver under "safety" at this point.

[opinionated ow]

It's all bollocks. A coach is allowed to give instructions to their athlete in any other sport, why not f1?

[Insomniac]

It's bad, and did you notice a distinct drop in the number of radio conversations played during the race? I love hearing those communications, and they've taken them away.

And I'm sorry, but a brake overheating is safety and they should have told him. In fact, same with the alarm. I would couch nearly everything I needed to tell the driver under "safety" at this point.

I agree. If there is a safety or malfunction occurring or imminent, it's irresponsible to not communicate it.


It's all bollocks. A coach is allowed to give instructions to their athlete in any other sport, why not f1?

I think overall it's good to make the drivers figure it out. But I will miss drivers telling the team to shut up. :)

[pfc_m_drake]

I absolutely love listening to the communication.
In fact, back in the good old days (aka CART circa 1996-2002) whenever I went to a race I absolutely *lived* for that kind of thing - I won't tell you how much I had invested in scanners and related equipment over the years :)

In any event there was one communication from Sunday's race where I think there was already some subversion going on. One of the drivers asked what I thought was a 'yes' or 'no' question and the team's reply was, "I'm afraid I can't say." From the construct of that sentence I took the word 'can't' to be a 'no' in reply to the question. You could envision a different construct for a 'yes' reply.

Since there's no policing that sort of thing, I wish they'd just allow full-blow communication.

[Insomniac]

I absolutely love listening to the communication.
In fact, back in the good old days (aka CART circa 1996-2002) whenever I went to a race I absolutely *lived* for that kind of thing - I won't tell you how much I had invested in scanners and related equipment over the years :)

In any event there was one communication from Sunday's race where I think there was already some subversion going on. One of the drivers asked what I thought was a 'yes' or 'no' question and the team's reply was, "I'm afraid I can't say." From the construct of that sentence I took the word 'can't' to be a 'no' in reply to the question. You could envision a different construct for a 'yes' reply.

Since there's no policing that sort of thing, I wish they'd just allow full-blow communication.

They said they could check well after the fact if it was coded once they were suspicious:


“We’re listening to it in real time. We’ve got four people in race control listening to three drivers each, and then we’ve got four or five software engineers listening to two or three each, so it’s relatively straightforward, for a start. Quite honestly, they’re not saying that much.

“We will hear every single message, yes. I’m absolutely sure of that. Going back to the coded messages, we’ve got to be a little careful about that. We could, for example, if we have some suspicion that a message is odd, say, we could then look at the data from the car and see if the driver did anything in response to that message. Then maybe at the next race if we hear the same message we’ll look for the same switch change, or something like that. We’ll build up a little knowledge.”
https://www.formula1.com/content/fom-website/en/latest/features/2016/3/good-to-talk--the-fias-whiting-on-the-new-radio-restrictions.html

But they're already eased up on Sunday allowing strategy calls to be discussed.

[pfc_m_drake]

They said they could check well after the fact if it was coded once they were suspicious:


https://www.formula1.com/content/fom-website/en/latest/features/2016/3/good-to-talk--the-fias-whiting-on-the-new-radio-restrictions.html

But they're already eased up on Sunday allowing strategy calls to be discussed.That's the biggest part of the problem I think - it's all completely subjective and loosy-goosy on top of that.