Under FIA sporting regulations in 2022, drivers who are forced to change their gearbox after the start of parc fermé on Saturday will no longer be penalized.
Therefore, street circuits like Jeddah, Monaco, Baku or Montreal, where it is very easy to damage the car when hitting the walls, are no longer a risk for the teams and the drivers.
There will no longer be any speculation as to whether a heavy impact against the track boundary walls could lead to a gearbox change and thus a grid penalty, at least for the first part of the season.
Until last season, drivers were required to use a gearbox for six consecutive events, and on Fridays they could use a gearbox that was outside of the main assignment.
This meant that a serious accident in FP3 or qualifying often led to a gearbox change for the race and therefore a five-place penalty.
The system has changed for this season. Now there is a set of gearboxes that can be swapped in the same way as some elements of the power unit. Penalties will now only be applied when the limit for the same year is exceeded.
From now on, gearboxes are classified as “restricted number items”. In fact, they are divided into two components: first the gearbox and cassette, and second the gearbox driveline, gear shift components and auxiliary items.
A driver will be able to use four sets of each of those two elements during a 22- or 23-race season. If that limit is exceeded, a penalty of five grid positions will be applied.
If a driver changes any of these elements more than once in a single weekend, only the second unit will be able to be kept for the following races, so teams will not be able to accumulate these elements once they are at the back of the grid. .
Also, Friday is now considered part of the event, so the gearboxes that were used in practice and were not subject to penalties if damaged no longer exist.
However, each team can play with its four “wild cards”: they will be able to use a gearbox that is out of allocation for four Fridays of the year, in FP1 and FP2 .
The reason is to give teams the opportunity to test updates that they would not otherwise be able to test on track. This also takes some of the pressure off of going through an entire season with just four pits.
Indeed, on Friday in Bahrain , both Sergio Pérez and Esteban Ocon did exactly that, with an FIA document confirming that “the following drivers have fitted a set of gearboxes outside of the allocation during FP1 and FP2 of this event.”
The new system also explains that drivers will no longer be able to do a free gearbox change if they retire in the previous race. That means that all those who are outside the top 10 in a delicate situation will no longer be able to stop their cars in the last laps seeking said benefit.
The teams will be able to carry out maintenance or repair tasks to prolong the useful life of each component, although it will only be allowed if “the work to be carried out has been approved by the FIA and communicated to the rest of the competitors”.
In addition, the FIA requires that “the competitor take all necessary steps to satisfy the FIA that the rules are fully respected”. This may include, but is not limited to, an accurate record of the repair work being performed, photographs, recording of part numbers, etc.
The FIA adds that “shift gears, clamping rings and reverse gear may always be replaced under supervision with others of identical specification at any time, when the technical delegate is satisfied that there is obvious physical damage to those parts.” .
What the new system ensures is that at least, in the first part of the season, we will not see penalties related to gearboxes.
On the other hand, if a driver has reliability issues and exceeds that limit of four gearboxes, then the penalties will start to apply to each gearbox.
And since there won’t be any ‘free’ gearboxes after a DNF, more gearboxes will likely have to go through their full mileage allotment, which could obviously lead to more breakdowns as well.
If a driver comes into the final races with just one gearbox, damage from an accident sustained in Friday sessions, Saturday sessions or even in a race could lead to penalties of having to fit the fifth unit and exceeding the limit.
The bottom line is that, as with the engines, the threat of getting a gearbox grid penalty has now carried over to the closing stages of the season, adding extra intrigue for those final races of the course.
