FIA announce dramatic U-turn over F1 rule change on eve of Australian Grand Prix

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Australian Grand Prix

FIA announce dramatic U-turn over F1 rule change on eve of Australian Grand Prix

It's not a perfect start to the weekend...

Chris Deeley

Saturday 7 March 2026 02:40

The FIA has announced a bizarre F1 rules flip-flop ahead of Saturday's action at the Australian Grand Prix.

It was announced early on Saturday that one of the five zones where 'straight mode' could be activated at the track would be removed after feedback from some teams, with the FIA's single-seater director Nikolas Tombazis calling the move a 'safety issue'.

However, barely an hour later, that decision was reversed after feedback from teams and drivers, including 'additional analysis contributed by teams'.

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The decision-making process has baffled many, including some who are asking why the teams and drivers weren't consulted to that level before the original decision was made.

An FIA statement read: “Following feedback in last hour from teams & drivers, & additional analysis contributed by teams, decision to remove Straight Mode zone #4 is rescinded. Further evaluation during and after FP3.”

Teams had complained that the change would make any data they gathered in Friday's running effectively useless, especially given that the section in question is a big difference-maker for the energy harvesting which is so crucial under the new regulations.

FIA's original decision explained

Explaining the original decision, Tombazis had said: "On most of the circuits these [zones] are fairly straight forward, they are in genuine straight areas of the circuit.

"On three or four circuits in the year, one of which is Melbourne unfortunately, they also include some zones which are fairly curved, as happens on the fourth straight mode zone here in Melbourne between corners 8 and 9. So, we had a meeting yesterday with the drivers and some expressed a concern that the downforce in that area was a bit too low, especially if they were fighting for position with other cars and they felt they could risk losing control of the car in such conditions.

"As, of course, safety is number one for us, we decided following some analysis to err on the side of caution and to remove the fourth straight mode zone here for Melbourne, starting from FP3 and of course for qualifying in the race."

He added: "We are for the first time gaining detailed knowledge of the magnitude of downforce reduction, some teams are experiencing on the straight mode activation, so this is new information for us and for some of the cars that is quite a big downforce reduction, more than we had perhaps envisaged.

"This effect is not the same for all cars, but we couldn't just act on a few cars and say: 'Well, you need to change your set-up' and not another's, because we wouldn't have a robust enough criterion and it's short notice to do that, so that's why we felt it had to be an action for all cars and not for some cars."

He admitted at the time that he was ready for pushback from teams, saying: "Some teams may argue it penalises those who have taken that factor into account, and that is true. But, as I say, we acted on this on the basis of safety, so we couldn't go and say: 'Well, your car, you're losing too much and you need to make a change, and your car is OK'. We didn't feel we had a good enough criterion to do that."

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