2023 has brought several regulatory changes, the latest of which concerns the review requests that can be submitted by teams during the season. A change that the Federation deemed necessary especially after what happened this year in Formula 1, with multiple episodes, exposed even after a certain period of time, which were not accepted.
Until a few weeks ago, each team had a period of 14 days to submit a request to the federation regarding the possibility of reviewing events that occurred during a race weekend. However, according to what Motorsport.com had learned, the FIA's intention was to review the procedure, so that teams would think twice before making a complaint.
The new rules will apply to all series under the wing of the FIA, including Formula 2 and Formula 3, which just recently saw the regulations modified to adapt to the indications of Formula 1. In 2023 there were four examples, which involving Aston Martin (Bahrain), Ferrari (Australia), McLaren (Austria) and Haas (USA), of which three ended unsuccessfully.
If previously the teams had 14 days from the end of the match to submit an appeal request, now the duration has been reduced to 96 hours, with the possibility for the sports commissioners to grant an extra day: “The period during the which a request for review can be made expires 96 hours after the end of the match in question, except in cases where the stewards consider that compliance with the 96 hour deadline is impossible, in which case the stewards may extend this period by no more than 24 hours”, reads a paragraph of the international code.
In the event of a protest, the regulations provided for a fee of 2000 euros, while in the case of an appeal the amount rose to 6000 euros. This passage has also been updated in the international regulations, indicating how the fee will be returned only in case of victory of the appeal: “The deposit must be specified in the sporting regulations or in the supplementary regulations of the competition. The deposit can only be returned if the right of review is accepted, unless otherwise decided”.
An interesting aspect is that in the Formula 2 and Formula 3 regulations a note has also been inserted which is not present in the Formula 1 regulations, which specifies that the 2000 euros needed in the event of a protest must be delivered in cash directly to the Secretary of the Sports Stewards.
The new rules establish that “the deposit for the appeal is due from the moment the appellant notifies the sports commissioners of the intention to appeal and becomes payable at the moment of notification of the appeal. The deposit remains due even if the appellant does not follow up on the stated intention to appeal”. In fact, competitors can submit a notice of intention to appeal immediately after an event and then have 96 hours to decide whether to proceed or not.
![FIA F1 Race Control](https://cdn-6.motorsport.com/images/mgl/6VRvdzL6/s1000/fia-f1-race-control.jpg)
Photo by: Michael Potts / Motorsport Images
FIA F1 Race Control
Furthermore, the FIA has reserved the right to further investigate cases where an appeal is notified but not pursued. This note is primarily aimed at investigating those cases where a driver has potentially gained an advantage by starting from his original grid position following notification of an appeal. In this case a penalty may be applied to compensate. It is important to mention how, on the contrary, if the team decides to continue and then loses the appeal, the driver would still lose the results achieved.
From now on “when the appellant has received a benefit from the intention to appeal, the request for withdrawal must be considered at a subsequent hearing”, while thereafter “the ICA [Corte d’Appello Internazionale] will decide on the consequences and costs resulting from the withdrawal of the intention to appeal”.
The regulations have also been updated to include the highest fines that can be imposed by stewards. The previous limit was 250,000 euros, while it is now 1 million euros for Formula 1, 750,000 euros for other FIA world championships and 500,000 euros for any other “FIA championship, cup, trophy, challenge or series”.
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