The FIA’s prototype methodology for its new Method 1 cooling gadget entails cooled water being pumped round driver overalls, with completely different design approaches permitted in future guidelines, Motorsport.com can reveal.
Final week, the outcomes of the newest assembly of the F1 Fee declared {that a} new driver cooling provision might be added to F1’s guidelines from 2025, following the intense warmth encountered within the 2023 Qatar Grand Prix.
Motorsport.com revealed again in July that the FIA was engaged on such a system, with preliminary designs aiming to implement a simplified type of air-conditioning.
This adopted an pressing allowance being added to the 2024 technical guidelines meaning a second cooling inlet scoop may be positioned on the entrance of a automotive’s cockpit to enhance airflow in the direction of drivers.
However whereas this isn’t necessary – and certainly not all groups even have such an element to be fitted this 12 months – the brand new system have to be connected to all vehicles if the temperatures at an F1 occasion from 2025 onwards hit an excessive warmth threshold the FIA is but to publicly outline.
This can prone to be when ambient temperatures are constantly above 30°C throughout a session, as in such situations cockpit temperatures can shortly go north of fifty°C.
Whereas the F1 Fee announcement didn’t include any particulars of the brand new system’s design, Motorsport.com can now reveal how the prototype works, when it was examined and what could change forward of the total implementation in 2025.
Oscar Piastri, McLaren MCL38, in his cockpit
Photograph by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Pictures
The way it at present works
The FIA initially meant its new driver cooling system to be examined in a apply session on the 2024 Dutch GP, however this was beset by moist climate, whereas extra modifications to the system’s design by the FIA’s engineers have been concurrently within the works.
It’s understood that the primary on-track proof-of-concept experiment was due to this fact pushed again to first apply in final month’s Mexico Metropolis GP, involving a so-far-unknown crew and a single driver.
Whereas the preliminary plan for the gadget featured a simplified AC unit, it’s understood this ingredient was dropped as throughout improvement work engineers encountered issues with its implementation that might not have been solved forward of 2025.
The system examined in Mexico due to this fact concerned a block of ice offering a warmth alternate to fluid that was despatched to a vest within the driver’s overalls through a piping system, with the cooled liquid then pumped across the vest.
It’s understood that your entire system weighed not more than 5kg, though a rise through the ongoing improvement work – which is about to contain additional on-track testing over 2024’s last F1 occasions – has not been dominated out.
To compensate for added weight at races the place the intense temperature threshold is reached, it’s doubtless that the minimal weight requirement for automotive and driver would enhance accordingly, with the restrict at present set at 798kg however set to rise to 800kg in 2025.
The gadget may be fitted in both the cockpit aspect construction and bodywork or within the cockpit itself.
It’s understood that the motive force concerned within the take a look at reported that the system did certainly produce the meant outcomes when it comes to offering cooling, though it isn’t recognized how lengthy the take a look at lasted throughout what was a truncated one-hour session in Mexico.
How the system could also be produced otherwise sooner or later
In addition to the event of the prototype system, a Motorsport.com evaluation of F1’s present and upcoming technical guidelines suggests groups might be allowed to develop their very own variations of the FIA prototype.
Sources have additionally advised that specs could possibly be launched through patents for cooling programs to be made by exterior suppliers after which bought to be fitted when required by the groups.
Carlos Sainz, Scuderia Ferrari, places on a cooling vest within the storage
Photograph by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Pictures
The present F1 rules truly already present for a driver cooling system that “could make use of the latent warmth of vaporisation, or of sublimation, of a substance”.
Saved thermal power can also be set to be permitted in designs for the brand new programs, as long as a tool can’t indirectly be used as an extra type of engine cooling.
Due to this fact, in principle, F1 groups might match a refrigeration tank containing an already cooled substance that’s pumped by pipes to a driver’s cooling vest, as a substitute utilizing the ice block methodology already examined.
Motorsport.com understands that the groups might additionally deploy a special system altogether that may as a substitute feed cooled air right into a driver’s race go well with through a fan system to realize the identical cooling impact.
Groups may even have the ability to make use of a fan to supply air for the condenser required within the refrigeration tank for the liquid cooling pump system.
No matter system a crew chooses might be required by the foundations to solely use air, water, or sure chemical compounds diluted in water to enhance thermal conductivity. Dry ice is expressly banned.
From 2025, the groups may even be allowed to open an extra gap to direct air on to a driver – both through the ground across the cockpit or the nostril – that should not exceed a complete space of space of 1000mm².
Moreover, F1’s guidelines already embody a proviso for using “cooling fits or balaclavas” underneath Article 14.6.3 of the present regs, which can also be included for these upcoming in 2026.
However these should meet the FIA’s present codes on wearable tools and “could solely use coolants which can be proven to be secure for publicity to pores and skin”, per the rule in query.
Why the gadget is required
The event of the prototype driver cooling system follows the FIA’s vow to adapt its security guidelines following the 2023 Qatar occasion, the place drivers suffered significantly over the total GP distance that came about in evening temperatures between 31-32°C.
Daytime temperatures have been additionally sweltering at a monitor the place its technical and high-speed structure means the drivers are additionally subjected to sustained excessive G-forces, which place a selected stress on their stomachs when strapped into an F1 cockpit.
Then Williams driver Logan Sargeant withdrew from the 2023 Qatar race with heatstroke, Alpine driver Esteban Ocon vomited in his helmet and Aston Martin racer Lance Stroll briefly handed out.
The FIA instantly promised “materials motion now to keep away from a repeat of this state of affairs” in an announcement launched final October, when the 2023 occasion was held at a time of 12 months considerably hotter than the temperatures anticipated for the re-positioned 2024 Qatar race that may happen early subsequent week.
When the inaugural F1 race on the Losail circuit came about in 2021 on 21 December that 12 months, the temperature was 26°C all through.
The preliminary thought for air-con to be included within the mandated cooling system was declared “not wanted” by Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton, when he was quizzed on the concept following the 2024 Hungarian GP.
“That is Method 1,” the seven-time world champion added. “It is at all times been like this. It is powerful in these situations.
“We’re highly-paid athletes. And you have to prepare your arse off to ensure you can face up to the warmth, in the end.
“It is powerful. It is not simple, particularly whenever you go to locations like Qatar and Singapore. However I do not suppose we’d like an AC unit within the automotive.”
Though the anticipated cooler situations in Qatar will scale back the demand on racers there, the event of such a system represents a optimistic step for the FIA throughout a interval the place the drivers have constantly advised their suggestions just isn’t being integrated in how F1 is run.
