2016 Provisional F1 Calendar Plus New Regulations

The FIA announced yesterday the provisional calendar for the 2016 Formula One season which you can see at the bottom. They also announced several changes to the regulations to make the cars louder, from 2016 all cars must have a separate exhaust waste-gate tailpipe through which all and only waste-gate exhaust gases must pass. This will not have any real effect on the power or emissions output of the cars but will aid in making the cars louder.

They have also added the below regulations to the rules as of 2016:

• Cars must now comply with all cockpit and safety equipment requirements during testing; such as the position of the driver’s head, all headrest padding, cockpit padding and ease of driver egress.
• Sporting Regulations regarding track limits have been clarified and specify that drivers “must make every reasonable effort to use the track at all times and may not deliberately leave the track without a justifiable reason”. Penalties will still be allocated based on whether a driver is judged to have gained an advantage.
• The WMSC approved the proposal of the F1 Commission regarding regulations for power unit and gearbox changes. Such penalties prior to qualifying will be applied based on the time of use. For changes made after qualifying, preference will be given to the driver whose team first informed the technical delegate that a change will occur.
• Any driver who causes a start to be aborted, even if he is then able to start the extra formation lap, will be required to start the race from the pit lane. The same process will be applied to a re-start from a race suspension where drivers have been brought to the pit lane.
• The WMSC confirmed a number of clarifications were made to aerodynamic testing restrictions for wind tunnel use and CFD, specifically focusing on reporting and inspection processes for these development tools.
• For 2017, on board cameras on stalks on the nose of cars will be prohibited.

  The 2016 schedule starts several weeks earlier in March now instead of the original start date of April and now consists of a record 21 races with the final race at the end of Novbember, you can see the full schedule below.
  March 20 – Australia
  April 3 – Bahrain
  April 17 – China
  May 1 – Sochi
  May 15 – Spain
  May 29 – Monaco
  June 12 – Canada
  June 19 – Baku-Azerbaijan
  July 3 – Austria
  July 10 – Britain
  July 24 – Hungary
  July 31 – Germany
  August 28 – Belgium
  September 4 – Italy
  September 18 – Singapore
  October 2 – Malaysia
  October 9 – Japan
  October 23 – USA
  November 6 – Mexico
  November 13 – Brazil
  November 27 – Abu Dhabi

  Certainly is going to be a fast and furious season with 21 races crammed in to 9 months of the year the teams and drivers are going to need to be consistent and fast all year.