Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd
The 2024 sporting regulations for Formula 2 and the FIA Formula 3 Championship have been published, and include a number of changes being adopted by both series.
The annual entry fee for each competitor has risen from €50,000 to €60,000, and all protests (which cost €2,000) must now be paid in cash. Appeals now have a set cost of €6,000.
Adopted from the sporting code into the regulations of F2 and F3 is “any driver who receives five reprimands in the same championship will, upon the imposition of the fifth, be given a five-place grid place penalty for the next race which the driver participates”. This only applies if four or more of the reprimands are for driving offences.
Race directors are now not tied to calling in teams three hours after a track session if they want to do a follow-up meeting to the one they host every race weekend on scrutineering day, and can instead summon teams at any time. It has not been specified if remote attendance is possible if the director wants to call a meeting once teams have left the track.
Perhaps the most importance change for drivers is the rewording of this line from F2 and F3’s 2023 regulations: “Any driver whose car stops on the track during the qualifying practice session will not be permitted to take any further part in the session.”
The revised version of the rule now reads: “Any driver who in the opinion of the stewards is the sole cause of the issuance of a Red Flag during the qualifying practice session will not be permitted to take any further part in the session and their fastest lap time during the session may be deleted.”
As a follow up to that, it means the ability to appeal deleted laptimes from qualifying has now been taken away.
The last two changes being adopted by both series is if neither qualifying or practice can go ahead, the championship standings will be used to set the grid, and drivers will now be allowed to two reconassiance laps before the start of races.
A change only being adopted to F2 is a tyre restriction. It is already against the rules to run a mix of dry and wet compound tyres on a car, and now when a car has four wet compounds tyres fitted, those can only have come from a maximum of two sets. That means using the front tyres from one set and the rear tyres from two different sets is illegal.