It's been a while since I dissected a FIA Sporting Regulations article. This one's a bit longer than some of the others tackled so far. It covers the responsibilities of FIA-appointed officials at F1 events.
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11.1 For each Event the FIA will nominate the following delegates:
The FIA gets to pick quite a few officials for F1 races. As the governing body, it wants to ensure it has sufficient people in high enough positions of authority to ensure the race weekend runs according to the procedures it has laid down.
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safety delegate;
The safety delegate is there to make sure that things like barriers are secure enough and in the correct position, there are no giant potholes in the track surface and other general dangerous occurrences are remedied before any vehicles go onto the track. Currently Charlie Whiting is the person who holds the post.
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medical delegate;
The medical delegate has to coordinate a small army of doctors, nurses and specialised services. To the two corner medics stationed every few hundred meters, the staff in the well-equipped circuit hospital and the emergency helicopter pilots, the medical delegate's word is law.
Furthermore, the medical delegate gets the final say over whether a driver may compete in a session or, in some cases, whether a session may happen on time. If the medical delegate believes that adequete medical protection cannot be provided, the session won't start, even if everyone else at the track disagrees.
The medical delegate also has the job of maintaining connections to the various circuit medical facilities and receiving hospitals through the year. This ensures that standards are maintained. New additions to the calender receive a thorough inspection from the medical delegate before being approved.
Gary Hartstein is the current medical delegate. His predecesor was the celebrated Sid Watkins.
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technical delegate;
The technical delegate has the job of overseeing the scrutineers and making judgements over whether Team Imaginative's brand new squiggly-wotsit is within the regulations. The delegate's expertise may or may not be sought when technically-based protests are issued.
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press delegate.
The press delegate's job is to make the FIA look good... ...and also to make sure that the journalists get the information they need. This includes, but is not limited to, a stream of official press releases covering everything from circuit information to who gets a grid penalty next race.
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and may nominate:
a representative of the President of the FIA;
Jean Todt does not attend all or even many Grands Prix, for the President of the FIA has a great many responsibilities - over a dozen internation series come directly under Jean's command and the standards and rules set by the FIA control hundreds more series at national level. That's just counting the sporting side of the equation.
However, if Jean feels that his point of view needs to be spread in the paddock but he has a prior commitment elsewhere, then he can send someone to act on his behalf.
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an observer;
A member of the FIA not connected with any specific individual can be sent to monitor either the race or some aspect thereof. As far as I know, the last time the right was explicitly exercised was when an "equality tsar" was sent by the FIA to ensure Alonso and Hamilton were equally treated in the final race of the 2007 season. I suspect that there have been more broad-based, low-key observations since, but their very low-key nature means I cannot name an example.
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a stewards advisor;
This year, the FIA invites an ex-driver (usually an ex-F1 driver) to assist the stewards in reaching decisions. This advisor may or may not have a vote depending on what a given year's regulations say on the subject (this year they do, last year they did not).
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a safety car driver;
Alan van der Merwe is the current safety car driver. His job is to check the circuit is OK for use before each session and then get race cars under control if necessary in races. Red flags are not used much in international car races, so a slow snake headed by a light-bedecked sports car is a fairly common sight. The safety car has to be driven hard without the car coming off-track or receiving damage in any way.
Circuits used to choose their own safety drivers, with Monaco retaining the right into the mid-1990s.
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a medical car driver.
The medical car driver has a lower profile than the safety car driver but is just as important. If someone has a major accident on track, then the medical car will get onto the track. This is an automatic safety car or red flag situation, even if there is no accident. The medical delegate and a lot of equipment will typically occupy the rest of the space in the medical car.
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11.2 The role of the FIA delegates is to help the officials of the Event in their duties,
The FIA is there to ensure the event is run the way it likes, not to do everything for the circuit. The circuit must provide some people. However, the FIA officials tend to have the senior posts and can render reasonable amounts of assistance to their less experienced colleagues.
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to see within their fields of
competence that all the regulations governing the Championship are respected,
Returning to the "FIA making sure things are done as they like" theme.
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to make any comments they judge necessary
This authorises the FIA officials to say what they think without worrying about whether some jumped-up local official thinks their authority has been unduly usurped.
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and to draw up any necessary reports concerning the Event.
The press delegate has lots of reports to draw up by the nature of the post. However, all the others have paperwork they need to fill in at least some of the time in order to best fulfil their roles. This regulation cements that requirement.
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11.3 The technical delegate nominated by the FIA will be responsible for scrutineering
This makes sense. Scrutineering is inherently a technical matter, so the primary technical expert would be expected to be responsible for it.
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and will have full authority over the national scrutineers.
This establishes a chain of command and prevents local scrutineers from approving a car they like but doesn't comply with the rules out of a sense of nationalism. Not exactly a big risk in F1, but better safe than sorry...