VIDEO: FIA INCREASES STAFF MONITORING F1 DRIVERS FOR PENALTIES FROM “1 OR 2” TO 40

The FIA has quietly built a surveillance operation that would make any American sports league jealous. Where one or two officials once monitored F1 drivers for rule violations, the governing body now deploys over 40 staffers — almost double the grid size — analyzing every move in real time. Steve Porter, who leads the Remote Operations Centre at Biggin Hill, calls it a "team ethos" supporting race control, stewards, and systems ops across F1, F2, and F3 weekends.

The expansion reflects F1's mounting regulatory complexity. Track limits, DRS deployment, VSC delta times, pit lane procedure — the list of potential infringements has ballooned alongside the sport's tech stack. Whether this army of analysts produces better officiating or just more penalties remains the open question. Forty pairs of eyes means forty chances to spot something, and in a season already littered with post-race penalties, drivers may find less gets waved through.