Formula 1 safety protocols a 'real challenge' for teams - Green

The new safety measures implemented by Formula 1 in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic will provide a 'real challenge' to teams when the season gets underway next month, according to Andrew Green.

Racing Point completed a filming day at Silverstone earlier this week, marking the first time the RP20 has run since pre-season testing and allowing the team to familiarise themselves with the new protocols.

“It’s very different and it’s going to be a real challenge going forward,” technical director Green told the media.

“[It] effectively changes the time it takes to do jobs on the car. Jobs now take a lot longer, and we have to try and manage that.

“We only have a certain amount of time trackside to work on the car. When we’re in a race environment, we have curfews in place, so we have to now look at how long it takes to change and modify parts on the car that we would normally do, but reschedule them to make sure we are doing what we need to do during a race weekend and not contravene the curfew regulations.

"That’s a big part of what we were trying to learn,”

With restrictions in place for the proximity of engineers whilst working on the car, along with the added complication of wearing PPE, Green is concerned about the effect this will have when unexpected, last-minute problems, such as the need to change an engine, strike.

"I suspect changing an engine now will take quite some time,” Green added.

“We can only have certain members of the crew working on the car at any one time, and that does limit the speed in which you can do a power unit change.”

“When we get into the real meat of the car, and centre around the power unit, we’re probably looking at, in some cases, it taking twice as long.”

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