It’s a busy time in motorsport-regulation-land (similar to Santa’s workshop, except Santa probably has better corporate governance).
I, for one, am excited to read the 2026 F1 Regulations over the break.
For something better, I've finally(!!!) replaced "Coming Soon!" (a slight overestimation) with some proper infographics (see the Infographics page of the site). I have been helping clients with FIA Regulatory questions and so am regularly reading FIA decisions. Therefore, I have a pretty good sense of the common mistakes and interesting angles - I'm trying to help make sure we get this right.
❓ Why are these useful? In 2024, procedural errors with protests and appeals cost teams points (or wins). These are often misreported as teams “losing” when actually they’ve just done it wrong. I’ve summarised three of these below, evidencing:
motorsport is a very complex regulatory environment and mistakes happen;
specialist advice is worth it; and
flowcharts are great – wouldn't the world be better if everything was a flowchart?
🚫 Example 1 - F1: Piastri Austrian GP
What happened?
Oscar Piastri received a three-place grid drop for exceeding track limits in qualifying.
What went wrong?
After qualifying, McLaren submitted an inadmissible protest against the decision. Problems with the protest: it was addressed to the wrong person; did not specify any regulations; and did not specify against whom it was lodged.
What should have happened?
Using the infographic above, this was a Scenario 3, except McLaren didn’t use the list in ISC 13.2 properly. McLaren should have protested the provisional classification. Aston Martin succeeded protesting the provisional classification in 2023 at the same track.
If the protest was successful and the decision overturned, it’s highly likely Piastri would have won the GP, so the mistake potentially cost a win.
🚩 Example 2 - WEC: Ferrari AF Corse Spa 6 hours
What happened?
The 6 hours of Spa was red flagged (stopped) and then restarted. Ferrari claimed to have lost a win because of an incorrect application of the red flag rules. Ferrari submitted a (rejected) protest and then appealed to the International Court of Appeal (𝗜𝗖𝗔).
What went wrong?
Ferrari lost the appeal. The ICA ruled that Ferrari had incorrectly submitted a protest (effectively Scenario 2) and appealing that protest would never succeed because the protest was impossible in the first place.
What should have happened?
Ferrari had various options: Scenario 2 - right of review or appeal; or protest the provisional classification 𝗡𝗢𝗧 a Stewards' decision (ie Scenario 3 but applied properly). Ferrari had used none of the available options.
💨 Example 3 - WRC2: Solberg / Toksport Rally Chile
What happened?
Oliver Solberg was deemed to have impeded his title rival Yohan Rossel. The Stewards’ imposed a significant time penalty on Solberg’s stage time that effectively handed Rossel the rally win.
What went wrong?
Using the infographic above, this was a Scenario 1 (ie a time penalty, albeit under the WRC Regulations). Solberg’s team lodged a protest against the Stewards’ decision (oops). However, the team’s only option was a right of review. For that reason, the protest was rejected.
What should have happened?
The team should have submitted a right of review. In the immediate aftermath, the team didn’t seem to realise this and nearly made the same mistake as Ferrari and submitted an appeal that they withdrew. We know from Example 2 that the appeal would have failed.
Instead we were treated to an extremely rare example of the FIA using their power to instigate a right of review (see the FIA powers). The FIA’s own right of review failed (some good governance there), although weirdly, it also didn’t follow the proper process for a right of review (not so good). The evidence didn’t appear to meet the high bar (see previous articles) of new, significant and relevant, but the Stewards went on to consider the evidence anyway (why not, eh?) and rejected the review.
👍 Summary
Go with the flow(charts)
Reach out if you like re-designed / visualised information. Let me know if you've seen any good examples!
Specialist advice on motorsport regulatory topics is always worth it