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Welcome back to Prime Tire, where we’re wondering if the FIA president trying to get rid of FIA presidential term limits when nobody likes the FIA’s new Formula 1 cars is like me saying, “Well I’m never leaving!” when someone corrects a typo. Maybe not. Who can say?
I’m Patrick, and Madeline Coleman will be along later. Let’s get to it.
Should F1 mimic SailGP?
Hey, why is there a sailing story on my F1 home page?
Let me explain.
SailGP is an annual international sailing competition featuring 13 teams that race identical high-performance catamarans. SailGP runs its boats with around 35,000 unique data points flowing off each vessel per second. Oracle Cloud Infrastructure processes roughly 80 billion pieces of information over a typical race weekend. (This may sound familiar to you — AWS does similar things at the F1 series level, while companies like Oracle, Microsoft and IBM work with individual teams.)
And then — here’s the part where F1 folks start sweating — SailGP teams just … give that data to everyone. Seriously. We wrote about it and everything.
Alex Reid, SailGP’s director of performance engineering, said visitors walk into the data center and immediately ask if they’re allowed to take pictures. “We encourage it,” Reid said.
I have tried to imagine Toto Wolff encouraging a rival team to photograph his data center. I can’t. The human brain has limits.
That’s because secrecy is built into F1. “Spygate” remains the sport’s defining corporate-espionage scandal nearly 20 years later. Everyone has been even more jumpy about protecting data ever since.
And yet, SailGP has had seven different winners across 12 events this season. F1 has had two winners (from the same team) across five races.
You could see a consistency argument here, if you squint. F1 teams buy engines from other teams (McLaren, Alpine and Williams buy Mercedes; Haas and Cadillac buy Ferrari). Shouldn’t smaller teams be allowed to buy data from larger teams, too? After all, the open-data sailing league is producing more competitive racing than the closed-wall “pinnacle of motorsport.”
Well … SailGP can share all that data freely because there is only one boat, and everyone already has it. The data points don’t reveal how to build a faster boat, but how well a crew is sailing. Human stuff. Harder to manufacture.
In F1, the data is the car. It is the competitive edge. Mercedes’ telemetry doesn’t just tell you how fast they’re going; it tells you why, and how to build your car to catch up. The data is the whole thing.
So SailGP’s open-data philosophy isn’t really a philosophy so much as an inevitability of choosing hardware parity. Whether F1 could (or should) get there someday is an interesting thought experiment. But too much of its identity lives in the answer being no.
Anyway, as you can tell, Andrew Rice’s SailGP piece is thought-provoking. I highly encourage you to give it a read.
Let’s stay on the topic of F1’s future, and throw it to Madeline.
Inside the Paddock with Madeline Coleman: No more FIA presidential term limits?
Current FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem has proposed ending term limits for the FIA presidency.
The current maximum duration that an FIA president can serve, whether consecutively or broken up, is three terms, which amounts to 12 years. Ben Sulayem is currently in his second term after running unopposed last year. The 64-year-old was the only eligible candidate after his rivals, Tim Mayer and Laura Villars, were unable to nominate seven vice presidents for their ballots.
BBC Sport first reported the news of the proposal, and The Athletic confirmed it with the FIA.
“A proposal has been put forward to establish a consistent approach to tenure across all FIA bodies, similar to what currently exists for the World Councils and the Senate,” an FIA spokesperson said in a statement.
“The proposal is subject to approval by the World Councils and by the General Assembly. FIA bodies retain full authority to democratically elect officeholders.”
Term limits for FIA presidents haven’t always been a thing. Jean Todt, who held the post prior to Ben Sulayem, proposed the rule. Before Todt, Max Mosley was FIA president from 1993 to 2009.
“Democratic election by FIA Member Clubs is the appropriate mechanism for determining who serves and for how long,” the FIA spokesperson said. “Elections place judgment with members rather than arbitrary time limits.”
Accountability: A correction from last edition
Thanks, Madeline. And now, I must issue a correction from Tuesday’s issue. I got something wrong in my last send, and I’m going to walk through exactly how. I am going to “Fire Joe Morgan” myself. This is what I deserve.
Let’s go through what I said line by line, and I’ll show you where it went wrong:
“F1’s new engines split output 50/50 between the ICE and electrical deployment. The problem: If a car can’t recover enough energy, the battery drains, and the car loses speed on the straights (that thing called ‘clipping’).”
A little clunky, but we’re not dissecting the prose. Also, it’s “super clipping,” not “clipping.”
Also, also, “super clipping” is not a passive battery failure. It’s an automated choice: To prevent depletion, the engine will enter harvest mode (even at full throttle). The car slows not because it is out of energy, but because it is prioritizing recharging.
“The Canadian GP’s Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve looks like the perfect fix on paper.”
Sure.
“Its heavy braking zones (like the hairpin and the Wall of Champions chicane) should give the power unit ample time to harvest energy.”
Correct. Good. Loving it.
“But the reality is the opposite.”
Here we go.
“The long straights demand so much sustained electrical deployment that they drain whatever drivers harvest under braking.”
You fool. The actual problem is sequencing. The front half of the lap has braking zones. The back half demands massive deployment with almost no recovery. Drivers who push too hard early arrive at the final straight with nothing.
“… making Montreal the worst energy-starvation circuit on the calendar so far.”
This section is the worst accuracy-starved section on the calendar so far.
I regret the error. I regret it specifically, and in the order in which it occurred. And I regret the rules are so complicated to understand, making me, and by proxy you, the real victims here. Moving on!
Ripple Effect: Welcome to F1, Gucci
Alpine is leaving behind BWT’s pink and blue livery for Gucci’s black, gold, red and green when Gucci becomes its title sponsor in 2027. Which is, aesthetically, a bit like trading a watercolor painting for a Renaissance ceiling. Here’s the logo for Gucci Racing:
I mean. Pretty slick. No notes.
As I wrote this week, it feels inevitable, in hindsight, that a fashion brand became an F1 team title sponsor, with the way fashion brands are everywhere around the grid and paddock. Even if fashion isn’t your thing, it’s an interesting shift.
But, hey. Can we talk for a minute about BWT, Alpine’s outgoing title sponsor?
BWT is an Austrian water treatment company. Its product makes water softer. The most glamorous sport in the world, with one team brought to you by the people who ensure your shower doesn’t leave mineral deposits on the glass.
I’m not mocking BWT. We support water treatment here at The Athletic. I just think it’s worth pausing, now that Alpine has announced Gucci as its replacement title sponsor, to appreciate the full arc here.
*pauses reflectively*
Anyway, BWT and its pink-and-blue liveries had a really good run. Merci pour l’eau.
Outside the Points
🏁 Last edition, we told you of Lando Norris’ Indy 500 interest. This time, Luke has the full story on whether Norris would ever actually race it, and what might’ve sold him on doing so.
🐝 A newly discovered species of wasp found in amber has been named Gwesped piastrii after Oscar Piastri, because the color of the amber reminded the researchers of McLaren’s papaya orange. Piastri has not yet commented, but we assume he’s absolutely buzzing at the news.
🔋 Mercedes revealed this week that George Russell’s Canadian GP retirement was caused by a battery that, in technical director James Allison’s words, “suffered a catastrophic failure” and was “fairly unhappy.” Someone should tell the battery to stop being so hard on itself.
🌧️ Madeline’s mailbag this week tackles the question everyone was asking after Canada: What exactly was McLaren thinking starting on intermediates? Read the full breakdown here.
🖱️ And finally, most-clicked last time: Luke’s dispatch from the Triple Crown.
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