It was wrong to recklessly ignore the dangers of drivers’ health.

Motor racing’s governing body has come under fire for late changes to technical regulations in 2023 to limit cars’ chances of lightning.

It took action earlier this year, introducing a measure to help limit the amount of time teams are allowed to run their cars from this weekend’s Belgian Grand Prix.

It happened after motorists complained about the injuries they were experiencing in the incident, and after that Studies show that brain damage can occur If you are exposed to excessive vibration.

Apart from the current changes, the FIA ​​initially planned to increase the rims of the F1 surface by 25mm for next season as well.

That move prompted backlash from groups who thought it was too late to make such a major revision to the car’s designs.

Finally, following discussions with teams and drivers, FIA President Mohammed Ben Sulaiman agreed that the change would be 15mm.

But with the teams seemingly in control in recent weeks, some teams still feel the 2023 changes aren’t necessary – and world champion Max Verstappen said this week he felt he was over the top.

Fernando Alonso, Alpine A522, Kevin Magnussen, Haas VF-22

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motor sports images

Asked by Motorsport.com to respond to the criticism, the FIA’s head of single-seater affairs, Nicolas Tombazis, felt that doing nothing was completely wrong and left drivers at risk of long-term health problems.

“Generally speaking, we see that as performance increases, there is a tendency to increase that. [porpoising] event,” he said. “At the same time, teams are learning more about it and can control it better.

“Now we have to act responsibly in this sport. We see examples of other sports where certain conditions are bought to the athlete that ignore the long-term consequences, so we felt we had to take a long-term view on this one.

“These rules will continue until 2025 inclusive before we go to the new rules for 26, and here we felt that it is better to act earlier than to discuss the same thing again in a year and so on.

“So it was a combination of all these factors. Also, of course, we made a deal. The president was very involved in all of this deal and so I think we finally came up with the right solution.”

“But we have no doubt that some people on one side of the debate will say it’s too much, while others will say it’s too little. That’s normal.”

Many teams were not happy with the original plans to raise the floor by 25mm, but felt no improvement was needed, so they accepted the smaller 15mm adjustment.

Speaking about his team’s changes, Red Bull team principal Christian Horner said: “Well, my wife often tells me that size doesn’t matter, so I’m not upset about 10mm!

“So 25mm versus 15mm, we have to live with it and that’s what happened. It’s inconvenient to promote at this time of year, it’s incredibly late, but it’s the same for everyone.