At its core, motorsport should be very simple, but with enough scope to make it incredibly diverse, competitive and complex.
Given that most elite-level teams employ teams of some of the smartest engineers on the planet working on motorsport gears, aerodynamics, tyres, engines and suspension technology, there is a lot of working in grey areas and close to the limits of rules and technical specifications.
However, in either an attempt to increase competition, improve safety or make “the show” more exciting for viewers watching at home, some truly strange rules have been enforced in motorsport.
FanBoost
In 2014, Formula E launched as a high-speed electric car world championship and pulled out all of the stops to try and get noticed in those early seasons.
The rule where drivers swap cars halfway through a race was discontinued quickly when cars were developed that could run a championship race distance, but the strangest and most enduring rule was FanBoost.
Ahead of each race, fans could vote for their favourite driver, and the top three (later five) drivers would get a power boost for five seconds later in the race.
Despite often being mocked and not seemingly having much of an effect on racing, it endured until the 2022-23 season that began in January 2023, when FanBoost was discontinued.
Formula One’s Many Failed Qualifying Formats
Formula One has struggled with creating an entertaining qualifying format throughout the early 2000s as the championship looked for an exciting alternative to the 60-minute shootout.
After two years of one-lap qualifying sessions, 2005 saw the launch of the complex and baffling “aggregate qualifying” system, where a car would set a lap time on Saturday, then a second on race fuel, with the result being added together to create an overall position.
It was incredibly unpopular and eventually scrapped in favour of the much-preferred three-stage qualifying system, although even this had the strange “fuel burn” rule where teams would spend several laps burning as much fuel as possible that they could top up for the race.
Finally, in 2016, there was the laughably unpopular elimination format where drivers were eliminated every 90 seconds after the first seven minutes until only two drivers were left.
It proved to be so unpopular that it only lasted two races before the old format returned.