with a Formula 1 rules Revolution coming in 2026 of all new cars things are much more straightforward for this season as we head to a year of stable regulations that's not to say there aren't some important rule changes coming in 2025 so here are the six of the most important to keep an eye out for Formula 1 has ditched giving out a point for the fastest lap in 25 after come back into play just six years ago at the time F1 argued that bringing back the bonus point and offer would add an extra layer of intrigue to races and they said it was something fans have been pushing to have once again indeed it had actually been a part of F1 in his early world championship years having previously been given out between 1950 and 1959 but the hopes did not quite match the reality while there were times when it proved quite intriguing to see who could end the race and grab the extra point on offer too often it proved to be a damp squib in fact a pattern would be repeated where whichever of the top drivers had ended up with a nice Gap behind them on the track so they had a buffer of a free prit stop they would end up getting it because of the freedom to get some fresh tires on and come out on top the Catalyst for the change of heart was ultimately triggered by the way that back marker Daniel Ricardo grabbed fast a slap in the Singapore Grand Prix last year as an F1 farewell gift taking the point away from Championship Contender Lando Norris some suspected that Ricardo's move had been used as a spoiler tactic by Red Bull sister team RB to help Max for stappen title bid and it's set in motion teams agreeing to drop the extra point and offer for 2025 Formula 1 cars have been getting heavier and heavier in recent Seasons not helped in part by bigger power units the need for batteries and ever tough for safety requirements a lifting of the minimum weight from 798 kilos to 800 kilos is taking place this year but this is a rule that's actually been designed to help some drivers the minimum weight combines both the car and the driver so it means heavier races have always had a slight disadvantage to help level things up a minimum driver weight allowance was set at 80 kg with teams needing to add ballast for anyone underneath that for 20125 that minimum driver weight is being increased to 82 kilos which is why an exra 2 kilos has been added on to the overall car Mass following the problems that drivers suffered in the heat and humidity of Qatar in 2023 the FIA is introducing a new cooling system for this season when conditions are deemed too hot by the FIA which will be a forecast predicted exceeding 30.5 Centigrade the governing body will declare what's known as a heat Hazard teams will then have to fit a special system which is in effect a battery powerered cooling vest that pumps a coolant around the driver's body the cooling equipment is been provided by American company chillout Motorsports which has a good ped GRE racing having helped deal with keeping temperatures under control in form e batteries as well as solutions to help driver comfort in wet and NASCAR having worked with the FIA chill out Motorsports has made a smaller version of its Cipher Pro micro cooler so it fits inside an F1 car the drivers will have to wear a special shirt that features about 48 M of piping that wraps around their chest and back cooling liquid will flow around this pipe work to help keep the drivers fresh with a regulation state in only air water or an aquous solution of sodium chloride potassium chloride or propylene glycol are allowed to be used in such designs beyond the suits teams will be allowed to open up an aperture on the car to increase air flow to a heat exchanger that's used as part of the driver cooling system to prevent teams being at competitive disadvantage from fitting this cooling system the minimum weight of the cars will be increased by an extra 5 kg in those races where the device is used to allow for this and the batteries as well as a hole to cool the components of the cooling system another scoop can also be fitted to the upper surface of the nose to help feed air to the driver McLaren caused a stir last year when its flexible rear wing was designed in such a way that as it bent back at high speed it helped open up the slot Gap to reduce drag and boost straight line speed this concept became known as mini DRS because it achieved something similar to the official drag reduction system and it played a role in helping Oscar piastri when the aeran Grand Prix although McLaren agreed to make modifications towards the end of the year after consultation with the FIA it did not stop some tweaks being made to f1's technical regulations for 2025 to Stamper anyone trying to do something similar for this season the slot Gap width is being reduced from a 10 to 15 mm minimum allowance to 9.4 to13 mm with the upper boundary still remaining at 85 mm when DRS is open that means there's much less room to play around with there are now also clear regulations that state that the DRS Bodywork position can only either be in the open or closed state so it cannot be flexible in chain shape and the transition time between these two states must be less than 400 milliseconds this demand means any Antics in getting the rear wing elements to flex to help reduce drag is now completely ruled out but it's not just for the rear Wings where the regulations will be different this year there's been a tightening up in terms of what teams can do with flexy front wings as well starting from the Spanish Grand Prix the FIA is clamping down on how much Flex tolerance is allowed in the front wings for the standard low test it conducts in the garage amid concerns that some teams could go to extremes with Aero elasticity this year from Barcelona the new requirements laid down by the FIA will demand a one-third increase in stiffness based on the thousand newton force that is applied in three different points across the wingspan the vertical deflection of the wing at the outboard area is being reduced from 15 mm to 10 mm while at the intersection is being changed from 3 mm to 2 mm it's not clear yet who this change will hurt the most last year McLaren and Mercedes led the way in flexi Wing designs as main Rivals Ferrari and Red Bull lobbied the FIA for some clarification over whether or not the two squads were pushing the limits of the regulations too much the FIA did conduct some extra analysis of the cars using highres video cameras from the Belgian Grand Prix to help monitor the behavior front wings but in the end it felt that nobody was doing anything untoward that green light from the FIA opened the door for Ferrari to begin running its own flexi Wing concept towards the end of the season with Red Bull Now set to pursue its own ideas aggressively for 2025 amid fears of there being an allout testing more with old cars an agreement was reached to put some limitations down on what teams could do for 2025 so for the first time ever the testing of previous cars which covers F1 cars that are between 2 and 4 years old is being restricted teams are now only allowed a maximum of 20 days of TPC running over the entire season with race drivers competing the championship limited to 1,000 km between them over a maximum of 4 days in terms of young driver running there's been a change in the three practice requirements too up until last year teams had to field a rookie who had competed in fewer than two grand pris in two practice sessions over the course of the season for 2025 this is doubling to four outings the chaos of last year's Brazilian Grand Prix where today qualifying was a wash out and there was a risk of not getting in a shootout for pole position at all exposed something major that had been lacking in the F1 rule book it was how the grid should be decided if circumstances mean that qualifying cannot be run especially amid the current complications caused by Sprint race weekend formats up until last season this circumstance was covered on the basis of stewards having the right to decide how best the grid should be formed which was normally based on the positions from the most recent practice session but Brazil last year potentially threw a spanner in the works because on a Sprint weekend it wasn't clear what the most recent practice session was there had been an fp1 on Friday morning but also a Sprint qualifying session that afternoon and the results of the two were vely different the FIA had been aware of the potential headache of this glaring emission in the rule book for a while which is why even prior to Brazil a change had been agreed for 2025 to cover things off the new article in sportting regulation states that from 2025 if there are exceptional circumstances when no qualifying session can take place then the grid will be decided based upon the driver's Championship classification there's been another small tweak too to the rules based on what happened in Brazil after Alex albon's car was pulled from the race shortly beforehand but his grid position not closed up for the start for 2025 the final grid will be drawn up 1 hour before the start of a GP it had been 2 hours before and cars withdrawn up to 75 minutes before the start will not be included so others will Shuffle forwards