Title leader tried new "pure" experience in the team's simulator
Wednesday 17 September 2014 12:58, UK
Nico Rosberg is expecting the FIA’s clampdown on team radio communications to produce 'purer' racing, after the World Championship leader experienced the new limits in Mercedes’ simulator ahead of the Singapore GP.
This weekend’s race weekend will be the first in which team pitwalls have to adhere to the new restrictions laid down by the FIA following input by the F1 Strategy Group at the last race in Italy during a meeting aimed at finding ways to improve the sport’s spectacle and image.
While communication with the driver will still be allowed over the radio, for such things as relaying the driver’s own laptime and requesting that they up their pace, messages, be it direct or coded, which relate to improving performance are now prohibited. In a second Technical Directive issued to the teams this week, the FIA listed 18 types of messages which are being banned including instructions on fuel saving and sector times of a rival.
The increase in the broadcasting of team radio over recent years has given rise to suggestions that drivers are being spoonfed too much information about their performance on track by their engineers from the pitwall, with a nadir widely claimed to have been reached when Rosberg requested during practice at July’s German GP for some “driving advice”.
And although the Mercedes driver has been at the centre of plenty of mirth on social media for that particular remark, Rosberg says he enjoyed the new world of relative radio silence while practicing the new Russian GP track in the team’s simulator.
“Great day in simulator,” the German driver tweeted.
“Practising Sochi & getting used to no radio comm. It’s good, the racing becomes more pure.”
The new FIA directives apply for the entire race weekend with the prohibited messages also not allowed to be relayed to drivers on pitboards or the settings in question changed remotely via pit-to-car telemetry.
The 2014 Singapore GP is live only on Sky Sports F1 this weekend, with our coverage beginning with Practice from 10.45am on Friday.
