As it stands right now, the 2016 Formula 1 season will feature a record 21 races, along with an earlier start date for the Australian GP. Oh and to everyone’s delight, we’ll finally have louder cars.

The new season will get underway in Australia in March, instead of April, and the brand new Baku Grand Prix will take place a week after Canada, representing one of six back-to-back GP weekends.

Also from 2016, all cars will have a separate exhaust wastegate tailpipe through which all and only wastegate exhaust gases must pass. While this won’t effect power or emissions in any significant way, noise levels should go up.

Other confirmed changes include:

– All cars will comply with cockpit and safety equipment requirements during testing, like the position of the driver’s head, headrest & cockpit padding and ease of driver egress (how easy it is for the driver to exit the car).

– Drivers must make “every reasonable effort to use the track at all times and may not deliberately leave the track without a justifiable reason”. The penalties will still be allocated based on how much of an advantage the driver will create if/when he bends the track limits to his will.

– Regarding power unit and gearbox changes, penalties prior to qualifying will be applied based on the time of use. As for changes made after qualifying, the driver whose team first informed the technical delegate that a change will occur will be given preference.

– If a driver, for whatever reason, causes a start to be aborted, he will be forced to start the race from the pitlane. This one is a particularly tough one.

– On board cameras on stalks on the nose of the cars will be prohibited starting with 2017.

Revised provisional calendar:

March 20 – Australia
April 3 – Bahrain
April 17 – China
May 1 – Sochi
May 15 – Spain
May 29 – Monaco
June 12 – Canada
June 19 – Baku
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

Next year should definitely be more competitive than this one. Yes, that’s what people were saying about 2015 compared to 2014, but there were a lot more unanswered questions about how competitive some of the cars would be.

At least for next year we know we’ll have a strong Ferrari team out of the gates, we know we’ll have a more experienced McLaren-Honda team and we’ll have newcomers such as Renault and Haas racing looking to compete for points right away.

Story references: formula1

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