Photo: Fotospeedy
Euroformula has dropped its controversial ‘Noda rule’, which enabled female drivers to run in lighter cars than male rivals.
The technical regulations for the 2023 season were published on February 20, and stated “the minimum weight of the car with the driver aboard, wearing his complete racing apparel and safety equipment, must not be less than 580 kilograms”.
Noda’s arrival in Euroformula with her family-run Noda Racing team was announced on April 5, and on the morning of the season’s start at Algarve on April 28 the championship’s technical commission signed off a decision “to fix the minimum weight at 560kg, for women drivers”.
There was another technical tweak on the evening of May 26, after practice for round two at Spa-Francorchamps had taken place, “to fix the minimum weight defined in article six of technical regulations of Euroformula Open at 586kg”. At this point teams were already complaining about the advantage Noda appeared to be given by the regulations.
That unhappiness continued into round three at the Hungaroring, which the technical commission addressed following practice for round four at Paul Ricard by saying they were “to fix a correction of (-15 kg) over the minimum weight… for women drivers”.
Noda – who is the series’ only female driver – took her first win the next day, bringing further scrutiny to the regulations, but no further action was taken as series staff then headed on a summer break.
However in a document issued to all competitors and dated August 31, the championship’s technical delegate stated that from this weekend’s Red Bull Ring round onwards that they would “fix the minimum weight defined in article six of technical regulations of Euroformula Open at 586kg for all the drivers” and therefore making redundant the previous technical decisions that had enabled different minimum weights based on the gender of drivers.