A History of Regulations

[max734734]

Hi there, first post here!

I'd to ask the forum folks, is there a publicly accessible version of the F1 Rules/Regulations to check out? From any point in time, if such a thing exists at all?

Kind of unsure if this kind of stuff is something the people who run F1 would ever release to the public. :sweatsmile:

[Bobby Doorknobs]

Hi there, first post here!

I'd to ask the forum folks, is there a publicly accessible version of the F1 Rules/Regulations to check out? From any point in time, if such a thing exists at all?

Kind of unsure if this kind of stuff is something the people who run F1 would ever release to the public. :sweatsmile:

Welcome!

Obviously the current regulations and those of the past few years can easily be found on the FIA website, but from further back... well, things get tricky.

Stats F1 gives a good breakdown of the broad evolution of the technical rulebook as it relates to weight, engine capacity and fuel. Of course, this doesn't account for rules that have come and gone over the years dictating aspects such as wing dimensions, fuel tank size, maximum car width and so on, so its usefulness is limited.

What we're really after, then, are copies of the International Sporting Code of the CSI for anything pre-1968, and the so-called "Yellow Books" - another name for the "FIA Year Book of Automobile Sport", an annual that began publication in 1968 and would contain the results of the previous year's international events as well as the regulations for the various FIA categories. Unfortunately they were not very widely distributed, so they can be hard to come by. I know a few of the folks over at the Nostalgia Forum have copies of a number of these documents, so that would be a good place to start.

You could also try contacting the FIA yourself, but from what I understand any time they've successfully come through on requests pertaining to their archives has been regarded as a small miracle...

[max734734]

A response!

Ah thank you so much for the help and leads to check out!

That said, holy crap, I didn't know regulations of F1 from the past were so Cloak and Dagger. :eyes:

If I may ask, does the FIA adhere to requests made with the Freedom of Information Act? Unsure if such an act exists in the country the FIA operates under. ;-;

[Bobby Doorknobs]

A response!

Ah thank you so much for the help and leads to check out!

That said, holy crap, I didn't know regulations of F1 from the past were so Cloak and Dagger. :eyes:

If I may ask, does the FIA adhere to requests made with the Freedom of Information Act? Unsure if such an act exists in the country the FIA operates under. ;-;

Cloak and Dagger might be overstating it a bit. It's more a question of whether they can be bothered releasing almost a century's worth of documents, which they've started doing at some point, but they've a long way to go!

In theory it should be possible to just email them and they will cooperate - after all, there's no real reason to keep all these outdated rulebooks out of the public eye. It's just that they tend to be unhelpful. A while back, someone on TNF contacted them asking about whether the 1964 Rand Grand Prix held international status: Their initial response was that they had no clue (it was later found that it was, in fact, a full FIA international event).

[max734734]

Ah I see.

I was under the impression the FIA, being a pretty big organization running Motorsports and all, would at times skip over email requests and stuff. :sweatsmile:

Anyways thanks for the insight, here's to hoping something good could come out of this.

[Rob Dylan]

It would certainly make those Black Stig Memorial series extra authentic

[ibsey]

Have you seen this thread: https://www.f1technical.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11804