Along with other "refinements", the start procedure has been revised, as the FIA's single-seaters director explains.

While it was the frightening near miss at the season opener that grabbed the headlines, there have been numerous 'fluffed' starts at all three events, the Mercedes pair appearing to be the worst affected.

However, all that should change when the recently announced "refinements" come into play.

Basically, at the start, if the onboard systems sense an issue, the MGU-K will come into play and give a power boost, thereby helping the driver to get up to speed more quickly, thus avoiding the possibility of a collision on the grid. Or, as some believe, certainly in the case of the Mercedes pair, undoing all the hard work done on Saturday afternoon.

Nikolas Tombazis, the FIA's single-seaters director, insists that the move is for safety reasons and is not meant as a means of aiding performance at one of the most critical points of the weekend.

"Basically, there's a detection of how well the car is accelerating after small amount of time after the start," he explains. "And if that is below a certain threshold, then it kicks in.

"Just to give you reference points, I think it would have intervened this year on two or three occasions total," he adds. "I don't think it would have intervened, for example, with Verstappen's bad start in China.

"It would have certainly intervened in Liam Lawson's start in Australia, no doubt about that. I think the Verstappen start in China would not have been in that threshold of intervention."

Reacting to claims that the revised system could be manipulated, Tombazis insists that assistance from the MGU-K is such that a driver making a poor start will still be at a disadvantage.

"We made it clear that that first of all, this is not supposed to be a mechanism whereby people would be, let's say, even tempted to do it on purpose, if you know what I mean, to come up better off.

"So what this would convert is a disastrous start to a bad one. It would not convert a bad one to a good one."

With this in mind he reveals that the FIA had considered issuing penalties to those drivers who needed to make use of the system, however the teams argued against this, claiming that any lost positions would be punishment enough.

"Indeed, when we first discussed this option with the teams we proposed that if this mechanism kicked in for any car, they would have to do a drive through at the end of lap one, in order to completely discourage any funny games," he says. "The universal position of all the teams was that when they are in that scenario, they're already out of their control and definitely in a bad place, and therefore that would not be necessary. And we accepted that.

"But if we see that for whatever reason we've missed something, and people started using it for advantage, then we would, of course, intervene. But we don't think that's the case."

The system will be trialled during Friday's extended practice session, when it will be used whenever a driver makes a practice start.

"We'll be monitoring the real starts and see what would have happened, but there will be some starts in the free practice in these races.

"Much as we've decided to do that, we want to do a few more trial runs before we introduce it at the start of the race. So it will not be available in Miami at the start of the race."

All of which backs up the feeling that the driver is having less and less 'say' in the matter, with the onboard systems taking more and more control.

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READERS COMMENTS

1. Posted by Chester, 29/04/2026 15:53

"Why not invite Elon Musk to develop a driver-less system for the FIA instead. I am incensed. If the driver "fluffs" his start the ECU takes over. I am fit to be tied."

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2. Posted by Anthony, 29/04/2026 12:42

"Oh dear. It sounds similar to the approach adopted by politicians, regulators etc to solving problems arising from over complicated regulations which is to introduce even more regulations. "

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3. Posted by NS Biker, 29/04/2026 11:04

"And I thought March 32nd was done for the year.
"... and the driver will drive the car, alone and unaided.""

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Tombazis explains revised starts

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