This weekend at the Chinese Grand Prix, both Lewis Hamilton and Pascal Wehrlein failed to comply with the 107% rule, meaning that they could have been forced to sit out of the Grand Prix simply because of some issues that they experienced in qualifying. Of course, the stewards allowed the two drivers to race, as they usually do, which has led me to wonder: Does modern Formula One even need a 107% rule?
The 107% rule was originally introduced by the FIA for the 1996 season and was supposed to prevent the poorly performing teams from entering races that they had no chance of being remotely competitive in. The rule originally stated that any driver that exceeded 107% of the pole position time would not be allowed to race unless the stewards allowed it. For example, if the pole position lap was 1m30s, any driver whose lap time was longer than 1m36.3s would not be allowed to participate.
The logic behind the rule was that any team, regardless of the size or financial situation, will be able to lap within 107% of the pole position, if they were properly organized. For those teams that failed to qualify for the event, the 107% rule was supposed to force them to take a look into the weaknesses of the team in order to get the car to be competitive, in turn boosting their performance. Since Formula One was supposed to be a sport that featured only the best cars and teams, the sport should hold no place for those who do not fit that image.
When the rule was first introduced in 1996, it was strictly enforced. This meant that it had the biggest impact on the privateer team, Forti. There were five occasions where the failed to qualify for the race, which led to sponsors leaving the team and the eventual bankruptcy and withdraw of the team with five races remaining in the season. Minardi, specifically Giovanni Lavaggi, began to suffer from this rule near the end of the season.
Arrows was the first team to be allowed to race, having failed to qualify when Pedro Diniz was a little more than 0.3 seconds over the time limit. This meant that neither Lola car was able to race in the season opener, but the Arrows was. From that point onward, the rule was strictly enforced again. This impacted Ricardo Rosset with Tyrrell, who failed to qualify four times in 1998. The Tyrrell team was sold at the end of the season.
From 1999 to 2001, the 107% rule was relaxed and no one was prevented from racing because of the rule, expect for Tarso Marques of Minardi in the 2001 British Grand Prix. This was followed by another strictly enforced season in 2002 before the rule was removed because a new qualifying format had been introduced.
The rule was brought back in 2011, when Formula One introduced the current qualifying format. The rule was tweaked to only apply in the first qualifying session. This led HRT to miss the season opener in Australia for two consecutive seasons. HRT has been the only team to have been forced to sit out a race since it was reintroduced, despite Caterham and Virgin (later Marussia) violating the rule.
Now that you know the history of the 107% rule and what it is about, it’s time to answer the big question: Does modern Formula One even need a 107% rule?
The answer is no. This rule has become so relaxed; there isn’t even a point of having the rule anymore. In fact, having the rule could potentially allow some unfair judgment calls from stewards in the future. After all, how does the FIA fairly decide when to apply the rule and when to relax it? All Formula One rules should be applied strictly, meaning that there should be no exceptions. The minute you start to add exceptions, the Formula One rule book turns into a bent copy called the Formula One steward opinion book. For example, what would the fans think if the Wehrlein was not allowed to race in the Chinese Grand Prix and Hamilton was? That’s not equality.
Furthermore, Formula One now is a lot different than it was when the rule was first created. The sport is no longer the best of the best like it was in the past; instead it has become whoever can dump enough money into the team to keep it going. The state of Formula One is not healthy enough that the FIA should be turning away potential teams that could have the capital to run a sustainable racing team. They need to allow all competitors into the sport and hope that they may get competitive sometime down the road. If the FIA starts to disqualify teams that fail the 107% rule, then the teams would lose money and maybe even drop out of the sport. And then the Formula One grid would begin to look more like the grid that we saw in the 2005 United States Grand Prix.
So if Formula One can’t afford to enforce the rule, what’s the point to having it even in the rule book? The simple answer is that the FIA likes to feel like they have some control over the sport and the way that it’s run. Maybe somewhere in the future, there will be enough serious competitors that the sport can survive if they start to prevent the slower uncompetitive teams from taking part in the race. But teams are hard to find because of the increased cost of running a Formula One team, so this won’t be the case anywhere in the near future. The 107% rule is just another pointless rule governing the very move of the Formula One teams.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any other agency, organization, employer or company. Assumptions made in any analysis contained within this article are not reflective of the position of any entity other than the author.
