2014 Formula One World Championship

2014 FIA Formula One
World Championship

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Sebastian Vettel, the defending World Drivers' Champion.

The 2014 Formula One season will be the 65th season of the Formula One World Championship, a motor racing championship for Formula One cars which is recognised by the sport's governing body, the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA), as the highest class of competition for open-wheel racing cars. Teams and drivers will compete in nineteen Grands Prix for the World Drivers' and World Constructors' Championships.

In 2014, the championship will see the introduction of a revised engine formula, in which the 2.4 litre V8 engine configuration—previously used between 2006 and 2013—will be replaced with a new formula specifying a 1.6 litre turbocharged V6 engine that incorporates an energy recovery system into its build. The 2014 calendar will feature substantial revisions from the 2013 season. The Grand Prix of Russia will be held for the first time at the Sochi International Street Circuit in Sochi, and the Grand Prix of Austria will be revived, with the race to be held at the Red Bull Ring in Spielberg. The Grand Prix of India will be discontinued for one year ahead of a move to an early-season date in 2015, whilst the Grand Prix of Korea has been removed from the schedule entirely.

Sebastian Vettel will start the season as the defending Drivers' Champion after securing his fourth consecutive title at the 2013 Grand Prix of India. His team, Red Bull Racing, will start the season as the defending Constructors' Champions, having also won their fourth consecutive championship in India.

Signed teams and drivers

The following teams and drivers are scheduled to take part in the 2014 season. However, their participation depends on the teams agreeing to continue competing in the sport under the terms of a new Concorde Agreement.

Teams and drivers who will compete in Grands Prix
Team	Constructor	Chassis	Engine	Tyre	Race drivers
Caterham F1 Team	Caterham–Renault	TBA	Renault Energy F1-2014	P	TBA
					TBA
Scuderia Ferrari	Ferrari	TBA	Ferrari 059/3	P	Fernando Alonso
					Kimi Räikkönen
Sahara Force India F1 Team	Force India–Mercedes	TBA	Mercedes	P	Nico Hülkenberg
					Sergio Pérez
Lotus F1 Team	Lotus-TBA	TBA	TBA	P	Romain Grosjean
					Pastor Maldonado
Marussia F1 Team	Marussia–Ferrari	TBA	Ferrari 059/3	P	Jules Bianchi
					TBA
McLaren Mercedes	McLaren–Mercedes	TBA	Mercedes	P	Jenson Button
					Kevin Magnussen
Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team	Mercedes	TBA	Mercedes	P	Lewis Hamilton
					Nico Rosberg
Infiniti Red Bull Racing	Red Bull–Renault	RB10	Renault Energy F1-2014	P	Daniel Ricciardo
					Sebastian Vettel
Sauber F1 Team	Sauber–Ferrari	C33	Ferrari 059/3	P	Esteban Gutiérrez
					Adrian Sutil
Scuderia Toro Rosso	Toro Rosso–Renault	STR9	Renault Energy F1-2014	P	Daniil Kvyat
					Jean-Éric Vergne
Williams F1 Team	Williams–Mercedes	TBA	Mercedes	P	Valtteri Bottas
					Felipe Massa

Team changes

• In 2011, former British American Racing team principal Craig Pollock announced the formation of Propulsion Universelle et Recuperation d'Energie (commonly known by its acronym, PURE), and signalled his intentions to enter the sport in 2014 as a customer engine supplier, with the full support of the FIA. However, the engine programme was eventually suspended in July 2012 due to problems regarding funding, and as of November 2012, the company had not secured any clients.
• Cosworth elected not to build an engine to fit the 2014 generation of regulations. This decision prompted Marussia, the only team using Cosworth engines during the 2013 season, to seek out a new engine supplier. They later joined Ferrari's customer programme with Ferrari providing the team with both engine and powertrain for 2014 and beyond.
• Scuderia Toro Rosso secured an agreement with Renault for engines in 2014, ending their seven-year arrangement with Ferrari.
• Williams will part ways with Renault after two seasons, switching to Mercedes power in what the team described as a "long-term deal". The deal came after Renault publicised their intentions to reduce their engine supply to three teams in 2014.

Driver changes

Daniel Ricciardo was chosen to take fellow countryman Mark Webber's place at Red Bull Racing after Webber's retirement from Formula One.

• Felipe Massa will leave Ferrari at the end of the 2013 season after eight years racing for the team. He will move to Williams, alongside Valtteri Bottas. Pastor Maldonado, having been replaced at Williams by Massa, will move to Lotus, taking the seat vacated by 2007 World Champion Kimi Räikkönen. Räikkönen will return to Ferrari, the team he raced for from 2007 to 2009. The partnership of Räikkönen and Fernando Alonso will mark the first time since 1954 that Ferrari have contested a season with two World Drivers' Champions in the team.
• Mark Webber will leave Formula One after twelve seasons, the last seven with Red Bull Racing. He will move to the FIA World Endurance Championship, driving for Porsche AG in their brand-new Le Mans Prototype, the Porsche 919 Hybrid. Daniel Ricciardo will leave Scuderia Toro Rosso to fill his seat, becoming the second driver to graduate from the team's young driver programme to their premier racing team. Scuderia Toro Rosso chose 2013 GP3 Series champion Daniil Kvyat as Ricciardo's replacement.
• Sergio Pérez will leave McLaren after a single season with the team. He will be replaced by 2013 Formula Renault 3.5 Series champion and McLaren Young Driver Progamme member Kevin Magnussen. Pérez will move to Force India, where he will be joined by Nico Hülkenberg, who will return to the team after one year with Sauber. As a result of the Hülkenberg and Pérez deals, Paul di Resta and Adrian Sutil lost their seats with the team. Sutil went on to secure a seat with Sauber.

Season calendar

The following nineteen Grands Prix are currently scheduled to take place in 2014.

Round	Grand Prix	Circuit	Date
1	Grand Prix of Australia	Melbourne Grand Prix Circuit, Melbourne	16 March
2	Grand Prix of Malaysia	Sepang International Circuit, Kuala Lumpur	30 March
3	Grand Prix of Bahrain	Bahrain International Circuit, Sakhir	6 April
4	Grand Prix of China	Shanghai International Circuit, Shanghai	20 April
5	Grand Prix of Spain	Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, Barcelona	11 May
6	Grand Prix of Monaco	Circuit de Monaco, Monte Carlo	25 May
7	Grand Prix of Canada	Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, Montreal	8 June
8	Grand Prix of Austria	Red Bull Ring, Spielberg	22 June
9	Grand Prix of Great Britain	Silverstone Circuit, Silverstone	6 July
10	Grand Prix of Germany	Hockenheimring, Hockenheim	20 July
11	Grand Prix of Hungary	Hungaroring, Budapest	27 July
12	Grand Prix of Belgium	Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps, Francorchamps	24 August
13	Grand Prix of Italy	Autodromo Nazionale Monza, Monza	7 September
14	Grand Prix of Singapore	Marina Bay Street Circuit, Marina Bay	21 September
15	Grand Prix of Japan	Suzuka Circuit, Suzuka	5 October
16	Grand Prix of Russia	Sochi International Street Circuit, Sochi	12 October
17	Grand Prix of the United States	Circuit of the Americas, Austin, Texas	2 November
18	Grand Prix of Brazil	Autódromo José Carlos Pace, São Paulo	9 November
19	Grand Prix of Abu Dhabi	Yas Marina Circuit, Abu Dhabi	23 November
Sources:

Calendar changes

Formula One will travel to Russia for the first time in 2014, with the Grand Prix of Russia to be held at a street circuit in the Sochi Olympic Park.

• Red Bull have reached an agreement with Bernie Ecclestone to revive the Grand Prix of Austria after a ten-year absence from the calendar. The race will be held at the Red Bull Ring, which previously hosted the Grand Prix of Austria in 2003, when the circuit was known as the A1-Ring.
• The Grand Prix of Bahrain will be held as a twilight event under lights, similar to the Grand Prix of Abu Dhabi. The decision to hold the race under lights was taken as a means of marking the tenth anniversary of the race.
• The Hockenheimring is scheduled to return to the calendar to host the Grand Prix of Germany, in keeping with the event-sharing agreement first established in 2008 with the Nürburgring for the two circuits to host the Grand Prix in alternating years. The Hockenheimring last hosted a Formula One Grand Prix in 2012.
• The Grand Prix of India will not be held in 2014 after organisers sought to have the event brought forward from its October date to April, but expressed concerns about running two races together in quick succession. The race promoters came to an agreement with Bernie Ecclestone whereby the race will not be held in 2014 and will instead return to the calendar in 2015 with an early-season date.
• The Grands Prix of Korea, Mexico, and America were included in the provisional calendar published in September 2013, but were later removed from the final calendar released in December.
• The calendar will see the addition of the Grand Prix of Russia with the race to be held at the Sochi International Street Circuit at the end of the season. The race will take place on a street circuit to be constructed around the Sochi Olympic Park. It will be the first Russian Grand Prix in a century, and the first time the country has ever hosted a round of the Formula One World Championship. The International Olympic Committee has cautioned that it will use its power to delay the race until 2015 if it feels that construction of the circuit and facilities disrupt preparations for the 2014 Winter Olympic Games.
• The Grand Prix of the United States had been provisionally scheduled for 8 November. However, the date coincided with a University of Texas American football team home game, which would have strained Austin's tourism infrastructure. The final calendar rescheduled the race for 2 November to eliminate this conflict.

Regulation changes

Technical regulations

• The 2014 season will see the introduction of a new engine formula, with turbocharged engines returning to the sport for the first time since 1988. The new engines will be a 1.6 litre V6 format with an 8-speed semi automatic gearbox. The rules dictate the use of a ninety-degree engine bank, with fixed crankshaft and mounting points for the chassis, while the engines will be limited to 15,000rpm. Individual engine units under the 2014 specifications must last for at least 4,000 km (2,500 mi) before being replaced, in comparison to the pre-2014 engines, which were required to last for just 2,000 km (1,200 mi).
• The Kinetic Energy Recovery System (known from 2009 to 2013 as KERS, and renamed from 2014 as ERS-K) will be incorporated into the design of the engine and its usage increased; its function as a supplementary power source will be taken by the introduction of the heat-based Energy Recovery System (ERS). The ERS unit captures waste heat as it is dispelled from the exhaust turbocharger, using an electrical device known as a Heat Motor Generator Unit. This waste heat is stored as an electrical charge until it is utilised by a complementary system called the Kinetic Motor Generator Unit. This device is connected directly to the drive train to deliver the additional power in the most direct and efficient way. In combination with the ERS-K it will give drivers an additional 161 bhp (120 kW) for thirty-three seconds per lap, compared to the KERS units used prior to 2014, which gave drivers 80 bhp (60 kW) for six seconds per lap.
• Teams will be permitted to use electronic braking devices to manage the braking of the rear wheels as the increased power output from the ERS-K units will make regulating the brake bias much harder than it had been previously.
• The 2014 regulations require the use of lower noses than in previous years, in the interests of safety. The tip of the nose will have to be no more than 185mm above the ground, in comparison to the 550mm allowed in 2012. These regulations were amended in June 2013 so as to completely outlaw the use of the "stepped noses" used in 2012 and 2013, thereby forcing teams to design a car with a genuinely lower nose rather than using the temporary solution.
  • The original rules—first published in August 2011—also called for a variety of bodywork changes aimed at cutting downforce, most notably through the use of narrower front wings, and a shallower angle to the main plane of rear wings. These additional changes were formally abandoned in December 2012, but the requirement that cars be built with a nose no more than 185mm above the ground was retained. The planned reduction in front wing width from 1,800mm to 1,650mm was subsequently reintroduced.
• In order to promote fuel efficiency, fuel will be flow restricted to 100 kg/h above 10,500rpm; below 10,500rpm a formula for the maximum flow must be applied based on the rpm in use.
• The position of the exhaust outlet will change so that it is now angled upwards toward the rear wing instead of downwards to face the rear diffuser so as to make the practice of using exhaust blown diffusers—passing exhaust gasses over the rear diffuser to improve the car's downforce—extremely difficult to achieve.
• The minimum weight of the cars will increase from 642 kg (1,415 lb) to 690 kg (1,520 lb).
• The use of false camera mountings will be banned. Teams had previously exploited a loophole in the regulations that allowed them to add additional pieces of bodywork to the car in the place of camera mountings and take advantage of the aerodynamic benefits. From 2014, this loophole will be closed, with the regulations rewritten to only allow camera mountings to be used for cameras.

Sporting regulations

• Mid-season testing will return in 2014. Four European venues will each host a two-day test in the week following the Grand Prix held at the circuit. These rules were later adjusted to allow teams to choose which venues they tested at during the season. Cars will also be classified as "current", "previous" and "historic", with the FIA introducing limits on which cars may be used and the conditions under which they are tested. The end-of-season Young Driver Tests, which were held to give teams the opportunity to assess rookie drivers, will be discontinued.
• The penalty system will be overhauled in 2014 so as to improve driving standards, with the introduction of a "penalty points" system for driving offences. Under the system, driving offences will carry a pre-determined points value based on their severity. These points will be tallied up over the course of a season, with a driver receiving a race ban after accumulating twelve penalty points. Any driver who received a race ban would also receive an additional five penalty points upon their return, as a form of probation to discourage further driving offences. Penalty points will remain on a driver's licence for twelve months, at which point they will be removed.
  • Stewards will have the power to hand out five-second penalties in addition to the existing range of penalties within their power. The five-second penalties were introduced for situations where a penalty was justified, but the existing penalties—such as a drive-through or a stop/go penalty—were considered too severe, or where such a penalty would radically alter the outcome of a race if applied retroactively, with penalised drivers facing the loss of championship points for otherwise minor violations of the rules.
• The rules regarding unsafe pit releases—when a car is released from its pit bay to the lane directly into the path of an oncoming car—will be rewritten, with the driver who is released in an unsafe fashion given a grid penalty for the next race.
• Drivers will only be able to use five engines over the course of a season in 2014, down from eight in 2013. Drivers who use a sixth engine will start the race from pit lane, as opposed to the ten-place grid penalty handed down for going over the engine quota in previous season. The engine unit will be further divided up into individual elements, including the turbocharger, ERS unit or KERS battery, with drivers allocated five of each component. Should a driver go over this quota for any individual element, they will incur a ten-place grid penalty. They will receive a further five-place penalty for going over the five-unit allocation of any other element after the original ten-place penalty is applied in a bid to stop teams changing multiple elements of the engine unit after receiving a grid penalty.
  • In the event that such a penalty relegates a driver past the back row of the grid, the remaining penalty will carry over to the next race. For example, if a driver qualifies in nineteenth position and receives a five-place grid penalty, they will drop to twenty-second and last place for that race, and then receive an additional two-place penalty in the next Grand Prix. These penalties can only be carried over to the next race, rather than accumulate.
• Following a series of high-profile incidents involving tyres throughout the 2013 season that culminated in a string of explosive blow-outs at the Grand Prix of Great Britain, the FIA passed a resolution granting them the power to change the specifications of the tyres used by competitors with immediate effect should the need arise.
• The pit lane speed limit will be reduced from 100 km/h (62 mph) to 80 km/h (50 mph).
• The first Free Practice session of the race weekend will be extended by thirty minutes to be two hours in length, with the teams encouraged to field rookie drivers during this time as an alternative to the Young Driver Tests. Teams will also receive an additional set of tyres for the first practice session at each Grand Prix. The extra set of tyres will only be available for the first thirty minutes of the session, to encourage more running during free practice.
• Drivers will be assigned permanent numbers for the duration of their careers, with the championship adopting a system similar to the one used in MotoGP. The number 1 will be put in reserve as the champion's right, with drivers free to choose any number from 2 to 99; the champion's "regular" number will be put into reserve while they are using the number 1, so as to prevent another driver from taking it. The regulations further stipulate that a driver's number must be clear visible, both on their car and on their helmet. Previously, the numbering system had been based on the World Constructors' Championship finishing positions from the previous year.
  • Drivers who do not take part in a qualifying period will be assigned grid positions based on the qualifying bracket they were in at the time and their Free Practice 3 lap times. For example, if two drivers qualify for but do not take part in Q3, they will start the race from ninth and tenth places, with the positions they take decided by their FP3 times. The rule was rewritten as grid positions for drivers who had not set lap times had previously been decided by car numbers.
• The FIA will introduce the "Pole Trophy", a non-championship award presented to the driver who qualifies on pole for the most races.
• The final race of the season will offer double points to drivers in a bid to keep the championship fight alive for longer.