F1 boss Chase Carey attacks FIA over complicated rules that fans ‘really can’t follow’

Provision for races to be decided long after the chequered flag drops and standings to be altered must be changed, according to Formula One’s chief executive

Formula One’s boss Chase Carey has launched an astonishing attack on the sport's rule makers for over-complicating it through the introduction of regulations that fans “really can't follow.”

F1 is famous for its fiercely complex regulations which are written by its governing body the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) and control everything from the size of certain parts of the cars to the areas of the track that drivers are allowed to race on.

“We have got too many complicated penalties and rules," said Carey at a recent investor conference.

"We have got a 100-page regulation book. We have got to get the business to a place where it is easier to follow and has fewer complexities that fans out there really can't follow.

“It will always be a complicated sport that is a marriage of sporting competition and technology but we need to make it something that is more in line with what the fans want to see and what excites and energises them.”

F1 race results are regularly determined by the allocation of penalties for breaking the regulations. Worse still, the penalties are often applied in the late stages of the races or even after they have finished leading to results being changed retrospectively. It fuels confusion for fans and even the drivers themselves.

Most recently, F1 was forced to do a U-turn on the result of last month’s Brazilian Grand Prix when stewards demoted Lewis Hamilton from third place and handed it to McLaren driver Carlos Sainz Jr. It was the best result of his career but because the stewards' decision was made more than two hours after the end of the race he didn’t get onto the podium.

Even more memorably, at the Canadian Grand Prix in June, Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel finished in first place but before he had even got out of his car he was stripped of his victory due to a five-second time penalty for driving on the grass 22 laps earlier. He was officially classified in second place behind Hamilton, putting the Briton on course to win a sixth championship.

Vettel was so incensed that he switched the first place sign in front of Hamilton’s car with the one he had been given and said “everybody is to blame. The problem is we are hurt with these things. I think they started a long time ago. Did he cross the white line, or use too much kerb? Let us do what we want. If you are unhappy with how we race and how we drive then build different tracks – it’s as easy as that. We have so many pages in our regulations, if you want you find the paragraph that suits. How can you change it? Just burn the papers.”

Ironically, his comments echo the views of prominent F1 critic, Jeremy Clarkson. Earlier this year the former Top Gear presenter said that in order to rev up its appeal, F1 needs to “get rid of the stewards. Dangerous driving is what fans want so if someone does dangerous driving I’d give them an extra five championship points.”

Clarkson added that “the governing body needs to look at what cricket did. They had a five-day boring sport and they turned it what we saw in the final of the World Cup - super overs and crowds chanting.”

Over the past 11 years F1’s global television audience has crashed by 18.3 per cent to 490.2m viewers fuelled by a move from free-to-air to Pay TV stations. In Britain the sport has lost a cumulative total of more than 6m viewers in the last year alone according to data from the Broadcasters’ Audience Research Board (BARB). It has been driven by a new contract which sees Sky exclusively showing all but one of the races live.

It makes it even harder for F1's popularity to accelerate but it hasn’t given up. Last month the sport announced that in 2021 it will introduce new aerodynamics regulations in a bid to put an end to Hamilton’s dominance.

It also hopes to level the playing field by limiting team budgets to £136m ($175m) with the penalty for severe cases of overspending being exclusion from the championship. However, as The Independent recently revealed, decisions on whether teams have breached the budget cap won't be made until months after the end of the season so there could be more confusion over F1’s results to come.