2025 Sporting Regulations

After five seasons of gimmicky fastest-lap scraps on the final lap from drivers far outside the points — and several incidents where a driver outside the top 10 set a fastest lap that still didn't score — the FIA removed the fastest-lap bonus point at the end of 2024. The change restores a cleaner points structure: 1st to 10th scoring standard points, no conditional bonus. Sprint points (1st to 8th) continue to use the condensed 8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 scale.

Following years of inconsistent stewarding calls on overtaking — the 2021 Hamilton-Verstappen Brazil and Saudi Arabia incidents being the most cited examples — the FIA published formal "racing guidelines" as a sporting regulations appendix from 2024 onwards. They describe, in plain language, when an overtaking car has earned the right to be ahead (typically: meaningfully alongside by the apex) and what counts as forcing another driver off (tyre-on-white-line principle, plus car-placement factors). 2025 refined the language after feedback from the Driver Advisory Commission.

2025 retained the six-sprint calendar that was settled as of 2024. The order within a sprint weekend remained: FP1, Sprint Qualifying, Sprint (Saturday morning), Qualifying, Race. Parc fermé conditions relax between Sprint and Qualifying — teams can adjust setup once. Sprint points (8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 for positions 1-8) are aggregated with regular race points in both Drivers' and Constructors' standings.

Both the team cost cap (active since 2021) and the separate power-unit cost cap (active since 2023) continued with annual inflation adjustments. Enforcement accelerated after the Red Bull 2021 overspend breach with more granular expense categorisation and clearer definitions of capex vs opex in the regulation. The Aerodynamic Testing Restriction (CFD and wind-tunnel allowance scaled inversely to standing) stayed in its 2022-introduced sliding scale.