Maybe not. But it can stop you from losing a race...
From my experience providing in-race regulatory cover, I was excited in the nerdiest way possible by Porsche Penske Motorsport's recent Qatar WEC win.
What happened?
Porsche Penske's leading #6 car collided with an LMGT3 Lexus with about 35 laps to go in the 2024 Qatar 1812km. The #6 car was damaged and the mandatory sticker displaying the car number was destroyed. The 2024 WEC Sporting Regulations state that the sticker "must remain visible in all the circumstances". And "If it is impossible to identify a car from its numbers (by day or night), it will be stopped by race control."
Outcome
Porsche Penske took the risk averse approach of pitting the #6 car and placing a replacement sticker within the required location to ensure regulatory compliance.
Would they have got a penalty? Probably not (as this was genuine accident damage) but having earned the luxury of being able to make a quick stop and ensure compliance, they avoided any regulatory wrangling.
Learnings
📏 Knowledge management – showed perfect knowledge of the WEC Sporting Regulations and the ability to quickly retrieve information.
✅ Operational excellence and teamwork – regulatory decision-making in a live-race scenario is hard. Some teams have lawyers on standby to review / double-check regulations, others will rely on the extensive knowledge of their Sporting Directors / Team Managers who are usually regulatory experts. It requires exceptional teamwork and planning to execute these quick-thinking solutions.
🪟 Transparency – Porsche Penske created some great content from an otherwise dry regulatory topic (see linked post). Their social media admin explained the regulations, answered questions from fans on the topic, and took suggestions for how to approach this in future. Sports regulations are predominantly a negative topic so it’s great to see a positive spin.
Let me know if you want to discuss sports regs, in-race cover, or methods for ensuring regulatory preparedness.