FIA make last-minute Chinese GP rule change after urgent request by drivers

The FIA have made an impromptu adjustment to the Race Director's Notes - the rules which drivers must follow at a specific race weekend - over concerns relating to several teams.

China is hosting the first sprint race weekend of the 2026 season, meaning that the drivers only get one full practice session before they head into sprint qualifying on Friday.

Similarly to Australia, FP1 didn't run completely smoothly as drivers continue to adapt to the vastly-changed regulations for 2026.

Arvid Lindblad was forced to stop at the side of circuit after turn 14, while Sergio Perez's Cadillac suffered a fuel system issue that curtailed his sprint qualifying completely.

Alex Albon was then called into the stewards' room after he performed a practice start procedure while the Mercedes of Kimi Antonelli was positioned in front of him on the grid.

The Williams driver escaped with a reprimand after he explained that the time taken to complete the start procedure due to the new regulations - now 20 seconds as opposed to around two - and the fact that Antonelli 'was on the grid for a considerable amount of time' before he arrived were both mitigating factors.

Unrelated to the Albon incident, F1 race director Rui Marques added a new section to his Race Director's Notes ahead of FP1, detailing a change to the practice start procedure.

Drivers will now be allowed to complete two further laps at the end of each session, once the signal is shown, to enable them to be better prepared for the actual race start.

In Australia, several drivers got off the grid slowly due to various battery management-related issues, with Racing Bulls driver Liam Lawson not getting off the grid at all for a number of seconds.

That meant drivers behind had to swerve to avoid him, with an unsighted Franco Colapinto showing lightning fast reactions to avoid ploughing into the rear of the Racing Bulls car in what would have been a significant accident.

The notes now read: "For the safe and orderly conduct of the event, pursuant to article B4.2.2, any driver on track when the end of season [later changed to 'session'] signal is shown, may complete two further laps, for the sole purpose of stopping on the grid to perform practice starts on each of these laps."

Ferrari, whose drivers Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton made up several positions at the start in Melbourne as others struggled to get off the line, were said to be one of the teams hesitant to approve the change.

Speaking ahead of practice, Australia race-winner George Russell, whose race start for Mercedes was his only weakness across 58 laps, said (via Sky Sports): "The FIA was looking to potentially adjust that [the procedure] but, as you can imagine, some teams who were making good starts didn't want it, which I think is just a little bit silly.

"I think they [the FIA] want to, but they need a super majority from the teams, which they don't have. So, you can probably guess which team is against that.

"Now all the teams know the problem, we'll just drive around it. It's just creating a bit of unnecessarily complications to something that doesn't really need to be there. Half the grid messed up in Melbourne. We'll adjust."