F1’s new tremendous licence system is pointless and misguided

Is 17 years too younger to drive a Formula 1 automotive? Again in January, the FIA appeared to suppose so. After the announcement by Toro Rosso that Dutch teenager Max Verstappen would be part of their ranks for the 2015 season, the FIA responded to the following uproar amongst some commentators and observers with a set of stricter rules for acquiring a so-called Tremendous Licence. Going ahead, the minimal age for a brand new F1 driver must be eighteen, whereas a brand new factors system for buying a Tremendous Licence was launched. With half the F1 season now gone and the championship now descending on the Belgian Ardennes, it seems that after once more, the troubles a few teen operating amok in Formula 1 have been unfounded.

As soon as once more, since this was hardly the primary time that specialists have been satisfied that F1 group managers had misplaced their marbles. When Jenson Button joined Williams in 2000, he was Britain’s youngest ever competitor in F1. Regardless of his instant velocity in Formula 3, three-times world champion Jackie Stewart was unimpressed and felt Button’s promotion got here too early. “I don’t imagine you possibly can go straight from kindergarten to school,” Stewart told The Guardian. Then-colleagues Mika Salo and Jan Magnussen voiced comparable doubts in regards to the large soar from F3 to F1. Within the years that adopted, Jenson Button turned a world champion and gained 15 races in Formula 1.

A 12 months later, Peter Sauber pushed the envelope additional when he employed a raspy-sounding 21-year outdated from Finland, with 23 races in Formula Renault underneath his belt, to companion Nick Heidfeld. As soon as once more, outrage throughout, together with sturdy statements made by then-FIA chief Max Mosley. Kimi Raikkonen answered his critics in the easiest way attainable: he drove a near-faultless debut season, helped Sauber obtain a never-equalled fourth place within the constructor championship and was snapped up by McLaren a 12 months later. In 2007 Raikkonen, too, turned a world champion.

Naturally, there are additionally examples of much less profitable children in F1, however even they by no means turned to out to be a whole catastrophe or a hazard to their fellow opponents. In 1998, 19-year outdated Esteban Tuero got here out of just about nowhere to hitch Minardi. The soft-spoken Argentinian hardly set the game alight and left F1 after just one season for the Argentinian touring automotive championship of all locations, however his presence within the area didn’t in any method result in harmful conditions.

Age merely doesn’t appear to matter. Each Fernando Alonso and Sebastian Vettel have been 19 years outdated once they drove their first Formula One race, as have been lesser gods like Daniil Kvyat and Jaime Alguersuari. Some will argue {that a} minimal age of 18 is just not unreasonable, since an identical limitation additionally exists for public roads, however based mostly on F1 historical past the argument is just not a really sturdy one. F1’s least spectacular drivers in current historical past (consider Yuji Ide, Ricardo Rosset and Gaston Mazzacane) have been all properly of their 20s throughout their short-lived careers. Fairly than age, uncooked expertise and ends in lower-tier collection appear to be decisive when defining the prospects of success for a brand new F1 driver.

Reality be informed, the opposite component of the FIA’s new licence construction seeks to deal with that expertise and outcomes issue, by making drivers ‘qualify’ for a Tremendous Licence based mostly on their performances in decrease collection. To qualify, drivers want to attain not less than 40 factors over a interval of three years in response to the desk above. However this too appears to be an pointless rule, needlessly limiting groups of their freedom to decide on their drivers, whereas there are some critical points with the logic behind how sure collection are ranked.

For instance, the implication that GP2 carries extra weight than IndyCars is a nasty joke, given the speeds, number of tracks and the extent of racing within the American collection. The identical goes for the implication that the European F3 is the same as IndyCars and the World Endurance Championship. After which there may be the factors argument, which has the nasty impact of ruling out completely succesful drivers from a future F1 seat. Primarily based on the foundations described above, Graham Rahal and Josef Newgarden (each two-time race winners in IndyCars this season) would at the moment not qualify for a Tremendous Licence. In different phrases: if the brand new American group Haas F1 would wish to deliver a shiny, younger American driver on-board for 2016, the brand new laws would stop them from doing so.

The principle query thus stays why F1 groups would want the constraints imposed on them by the brand new licence system. The examples above present that age is solely not an issue, and the idiocy of the factors system is additional illustrated by the truth that a number of profitable drivers wouldn’t have certified for a Tremendous Licence had the brand new licence system been in pressure on the time of their debut (Alonso, Raikkonen and Button all fall into this class, whereas Giancarlo Fisichella is one other good instance). If something, Formula One groups have a relatively sturdy monitor file relating to choosing their drivers, particularly prior to now ten to fifteen years throughout which the game has grown ever extra skilled.

Moreover, the child who began the entire dialogue has confirmed to be a godsend for F1. Max Verstappen‘s take-no-prisoners driving type has been refreshing to say the least, his total performances have been sturdy and in hindsight, the penalty he was awarded after his collision with Romain Grosjean in Monaco was misguided. Regardless of his age, Verstappen comes throughout as calm and picked up (a helpful genetic enchancment over his generally relatively temperamental father), seemingly unfazed by the unending media consideration and the calls for of his new day job. Like Raikkonen, Alonso and Button, Max Verstappen appears destined for better issues and is arguably probably the most thrilling expertise within the collection proper now.

Not for the primary time, it seems as if the FIA has been terribly busy defining an answer to a non-existing downside. As a substitute of letting group managers get on with their jobs of choosing the right drivers for his or her groups, a job they’re completely able to, the FIA’s knee-jerk response to a couple critics of Max Verstappen has been a very restrictive licence system. Equally, extreme worries about security have earlier led to a ban on refueling and begins behind the protection automotive within the occasion of greater than two drops of rain. The result’s that F1 has change into an increasing number of stale lately, sparking a dialogue about the way forward for the game that has been raging for fairly a while now. Talking of an issue that wants an answer.