WHAT THE FRICK IS GOING ON WITH FRIC?: It was announced after the British Grand Prix earlier this month that Formula One’s governing body, the FIA, would impose a ban on a system of suspension currently being used by the teams, known as FRIC. FRIC is a simplified term for front to rear interlinked suspension. It is a complex system that interlinks the front and rear suspension on the car through the hydraulics to give the driver better all-round stability. The FIA’s reasoning behind the ban boiled back down to the ever-growing, cost-cutting concepts, which they are exploring along with the teams. Getting rid of the FRIC suspension in their eyes would simply be another measure to cut costs for the future. However that had inevitably sparked some conspiracy theorists to believe that it was a regulation being introduced to simply slow down the top team this season, being Mercedes AMG. Though to the contrary, it is also believed that removing the FRIC system should not affect performance drastically, if not at all. The ambiguity around this new regulation alas lies in when it will be implemented. That has created a lot of confusion for the teams ahead of this weekend’s German Grand Prix. While the FIA has said that they’re happy for a proper ban to be enforced in 2015, there is still the chance of seeing teams without FRIC from this weekend onward. A McLaren representative has already confirmed to AUTOSPORT magazine that their outfit has opted not to run with the system and will ‘comply with the FIA’s rulings on the matter.’ Similarly today, Red Bull announced that they would not run the system either. As for the other teams, it is currently unknown whether they will still use FRIC this weekend. And this has left open the possibility for teams to now protest to the FIA over their competitors using ‘illegal’ systems on their cars. That is simply because they were all unable to reach an agreement with race director Charlie Whiting over creating a ‘non-protest pact’ while the future of FRIC is still being decided. So if the FRIC system is said to not make a significant impact on the car’s performance, why then hasn’t a unanimous decision been reached by all the relevant parties? If the FIA have given the option to the teams to wait until next year before the system is outlawed, why then is that not considered reasonable? The expectation will be that a compromise is reached between each party. This is so that there is no situation where some teams elect to run FRIC and some teams elect not to, leading to a mill of conspiracies and speculations over one team having performance advantages over the other.
Posted on: Thu, 17 Jul 2014 08:36:26 +0000
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