Running the event
The Sporting Regulations govern everything that isn't the car: session formats, grid procedures, safety-car rules, pit-lane conduct, points, and penalties. Where the technical rules are physics, the sporting rules are law — and just as contested.
Key mechanisms include parc fermé (setup frozen from qualifying onward), the 107% qualifying cut, tire allocation rules, and curfews limiting overnight mechanic work.
The penalty ladder
Driving offenses draw escalating punishments: time penalties (5s or 10s, served at a stop or added post-race), drive-throughs, stop-go penalties, grid drops for the next race, penalty points on the superlicence (12 in a year = one-race ban), and in extremis disqualification or race bans.
Causing a collision, unsafe release, speeding in the pit lane, track-limits abuse and impeding in qualifying are the everyday currency of steward decisions.
Parc fermé and why it matters
From qualifying until the race, cars sit under parc fermé conditions: only minor maintenance allowed, no setup changes. Get your setup wrong on Saturday and you carry it through Sunday — or break the seal and start from the pit lane.
The rule exists to prevent qualifying-special cars and to cap costs; its side effect is drama whenever weather flips between Saturday and Sunday and everyone is locked into the wrong configuration.