Party Mode F1: Qualifying mode set to be banned before Belgian Grand Prix

Party Mode F1: Formula 1 set to ban qualifying mode before the season reaches to Belgian Grand Prix, many drivers aren’t willing to lose it.

Recently reports emerged that Formula 1 is planning to ban Party mode from the further Grand Prix events, with Belgian Grand Prix kicking off the decree.

According to the Race, ‘very much intends’ to issue a technical directive ahead of the Belgian Grand Prix that would stop Formula 1 teams being able to use ‘party modes’ in qualifying.

Though it has been also reported that the decision might be pushed to 2021 even if it gets passed by this week. The new directive would obligate the teams to use that the engine mode used in qualifying are applied a certain amount of time in the race as well.

FIA race director Michael Masi said after the Spanish GP that “it’s very much intended that the technical directive of the use of the engine modes will be issued prior to the Spa event”, marking the governing body’s first public comment on the matter.”

The alleged purpose behind banning Party mode in F1?

According to the FIA, as per the Race, the change is to make it easier for the complicated V6 turbo-hybrid engines to be policed, though an ulterior motive is perceived to be that it might pull back the dominant Mercedes team.

However, Mercedes is confident that the directive will not affect their performance on the grid and might even help them during the races with more engine durability, contrary to Lewis Hamilton’s outrage.

“We don’t lack in performance on Saturdays,” said Wolff when asked by The Race if the engine mode technical directive could just make Mercedes even stronger in races.

“We had until now quite a margin. We struggled in some of the races where we were quite limited in powerful engine modes. And if Formula 1 were to ban, in season, certain power unit modes then I think it will actually help us in the race.

“Because if you can avoid to damage your power unit in those few qualifying laps that you have available in Q3 and then the odd lap in the race the damage metric goes down dramatically.

“So five laps of quali mode not being done gives us 25 laps of more performance in the race. We are always very marginal on what we can extract from the power unit and if we were to be limited in qualifying modes well then, we will be stronger in the race.”

About the author

Tanish Chachra

Tanish Chachra is the Motorsport editor at The SportsRush. He saw his first race when F1 visited India in 2011, and since then, his romance with the sport has been seasonal until he took up this role in 2020. Reigniting F1's coverage on this site, Tanish has fallen in love with the sport all over again. He loves Kimi Raikkonen and sees a future world champion in Oscar Piastri. Away from us, he loves to snuggle inside his books.

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