Source
r/F1Technical•
eskh

What parts must stay original when fixing a car after a crash?

Question/Discussion

Let's say you do several barrel rolls in FP1, severely damaging literally everything, but have the time to fix (or rather rebuild) the car and are allowed to race by medical crew.

What part of the original car must stay the same in this case? The monocoque being carbon fiber would be a safety concern I guess, because it would have already absorbed the forces of a big crash.

Posted Dec 6, 2021, 8:11 AM UTC

77
n4ppyn4ppy•

As long as you are in FP you can replace what you want crash or not with different spec parts. As long as you stay inside your pool of engine/gearbox/exhaust. Once Parc ferme comes in play you can only replace like for like (if you want to keep your spot) If you build up a different car it's a pitlane start

5
Jetisr1•

So here's a question I'm not entirely sure about. Are you allowed to put a new engine in a car for Free Practice, and then put one of your old engines in for quali and the race, and not take any penalty for it? Because if I recall correctly, penalties for new engines only apply to the actual race they're used in, not when they're installed.

Note, I don't actually think there's any reason to do this, but I'm curious if there's any rule against doing it.

1
n4ppyn4ppy•

Once an engine is in the pool it's in the pool (either one of the allowed or through a penalty) When you use it is up to you. Where the sensible thing is to drive old engine parts on Friday and use the best stuff for qualifying and race. But even there they can mix if the race is low demand they might use older stuff to spare the prime parts for higher demand races.

23.2b of the Sporting regulations states that you get a penalty at the first event where the part is used

1.8 of the technical regulations defines an event starting 24h before P1

So even if the install it P1 it's a penalty (although maybe there could be some lawyering around the definition of use ;)

3
Jetisr1•

But as far as I understand, you can't take multiple engine penalties at one event, correct? So no taking 20 engines and then no more engine penalties. So how does that work? Or am I wrong here?

1
n4ppyn4ppy•

Check out https://www.fia.com/regulation/category/110 for the details :)

Any of the seven (7) elements will be deemed to have been used once the car’s timing transponder has shown that it has left the pit lane.

Ah that defines USE

During any single Event, if a driver introduces more than one of the same power unit element which is subject to penalties, only the last element fitted may be used at subsequent Events without further penalty.

That should answer your question :)

3
[deleted]•

[removed]

1