The World Motor Sport Council convened in Munich and ratified a number of rule changes for the 2015 Formula One World Championship Season.
The introduction of standing starts after a safety car period, the reduction in the number of power units, and the reduction in in-season testing are amongst the decisions made by the council, which looked at both the Sporting and Technical regulations.
The use of a standing start after a safety car period is one of the bigger chances in Formula 1 starting from next year. Once the lapped drivers have been allowed to join the back of the pack, the cars will line-up in race order on the grid and restart like it would at the beginning of the race.
The only times a standing start restart will not be used will be if the safety car is used within two laps of the start or restart of a race, or if there is less than five laps to go until the end of the race.
The number of power units any driver can use in 2015 has been reduced from this year’s five to four. However in the scenario that the season will contain more than 20 races, it will remain at five. The penalty for a complete change of Power Unit will be starting from the back of the grid, not from the pit lane.
The council also reduced the number of wind tunnel runs from 80 to 65 hours per week, with the wind-on hours reduced from 30 to 25 hours per week. They have also reduced the usage of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) from 30 to 25 Teraflops.
Pre-season testing will return to being purely in Europe from 2015 having used the Bahrain International Circuit in 2014. The number of in-season tests will be reduced from four to two, with at least two days of the in-season testing being reserved to run young drivers.
Parc fermé has also been changed, with it now applying from the start of the third practice session rather than the start of qualifying. The Friday night curfew has also been extended from six hours to seven hours.
The technical regulation changes include the introduction of a titanium skid block beneath the car that was tested by Nico Rosberg and Kimi Raikkonen in Austria, as well as a change of regulation to remove the ugly noses seen on the 2014 cars while improving the safety of them.
