FIA announce F1 rule changes for 2025 season

The FIA have announced some rule changes ahead of next season

Sam Cook Digital Journalist

Sports Journalist who has been covering motorsport since 2023

Friday 13 December 2024 16:00

The FIA have announced a raft of rule changes ahead of the 2025 Formula 1 season.

The FIA's World Motor Sport Council met while they were convened in Rwanda for their annual awards ceremony, locking down a number of changes for the upcoming season.

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The 2025 season is one of the most hotly-anticipated seasons in recent F1 history, with seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton heading to Ferrari for one last attempt at winning an unprecedented eighth world title.

On top of this, that particular move sparked a plethora of other driver changes, with Carlos Sainz moving to Williams, Nico Hulkenberg joining Sauber, and a number of teams hiring youngsters such as Kimi Antonelli at Mercedes and Ollie Bearman at Haas.

Lewis Hamilton will join Ferrari in 2025

The FIA have revealed some new rule changes

DRS and driver cooling changes revealed

Now, the FIA have thrown an extra spanner into the works by announcing some key rule changes for 2025, at the meeting of the World Motorsport Council in Rwanda.

But now, the sport's governing body have tweaked a couple of rules in time for 2025, focusing around DRS regulations and driver cooling.

The minimum gap allowed in the rear wing slot when DRS is closed has been reduced to 9.4-13mm, presumably to try and avoid a similar situation to the McLaren 'mini DRS' row that clouded the Azerbaijan GP.

New driver cooling kits were recently introduced by the FIA, but with the kits adding weight, it was determined that it must be made mandatory to use them in hot conditions.

The FIA have now clarified when they will have to be used, when a race director calls a 'heat hazard', or when temperatures on the FIA's official weather radar are predicted to reach over 30.5 degrees Celsius.

Lewis Hamilton Ferrari FIA