Series organisers have modified the allocation for push-to-pass per race ahead of this season. Feeder Series asked several drivers for their opinion of the new rules and found mixed responses across the grid.

By Juan Arroyo

Eurocup-3 has modified their push-to-pass regulations to allow 60 seconds of free activation throughout a race ahead of the 2024 season.

Last year, drivers could only activate push-to-pass for 15 seconds at a time, with a maximum of five allowed per race. Each push also had a one-minute cooldown before the additional power could be activated again.

The technology was brought over to the series by Autotecnica when the modified Tatuus F3 T318 was introduced. Organisers last season took the same ruleset from the Formula Regional European Championship, which also makes use of push-to-pass in their cars.

Push-to-pass was originally introduced in FRECA to address the lack of overtaking seen over the three years since the series’ birth. FRECA and Eurocup-3 rules allow for its use after the first lap of a race, with the technology increasing power output from the engine as soon as it is activated.

Drivers in Eurocup-3 have not tried out the new 60-second rule under race conditions yet. Instead, they have done it in testing, most recently in Spa-Francorchamps last month. The series’ last race was a non-championship round in Aragón in February, where they used the old rules.

Rookies and drivers heading into the second year will enter the season with the same experience with the new push-to-pass.

Several drivers have spoken on the “freedom” that the new ruleset will allow them. Now, they will be able to push for their preferred amount of time, without potentially leaving several seconds of the technology to waste after overtaking an opponent.

Nick Gilkes wrote his thoughts on the new ruleset to Feeder Series.

“I think the new push-to-pass system is a really good idea – it allows us to have a lot more freedom in how and when we use it and adds a further element of strategy into the race.

“With the new system it really depends on the approach you take to it, and in truth where on the grid you are, but ultimately it’s a great decision that will make the racing more exciting.”

Valentin Kluss seconded the notion that the new rule will grant drivers more freedom in activating push-to-pass and lined out a potential strategy option for those starting on pole position.

“Since you can use the whole 60 seconds in one go, you could for example, if you start P1 with a bit more downforce than the rest, use all of it to pull two seconds to P2 and then since you got P2 out of slipstream, they will have no chance to catch you back. This is one strategy I’m very sure will be used a couple of times,” Kluss wrote.

“But also if you start from the back and you are one of the fastest, the new rule can help to get through the field a lot quicker.  You can also defend/try to pass in multiple straights in a row if needed. Before you needed to time it perfectly and then you had to wait again,” he added.

At the Aragón non-championship round, incoming rookie Christian Ho said he used all five of his push-to-pass activations in a battle with Valerio Rinicella early in one of the weekend’s races. It made fighting with Noah Lisle later in the race much more difficult.

“When I was fighting with Noah [Lisle], it was not the best. I think it’s pretty interesting. You have to think a lot when you’re using all these push-to-pass [activations]. You can’t really spam it compared to before. But now, with the 60-second rule, I think there are a wider range of options to decide when to use it,” Ho said.

Drivex’s George Zhuravskiy, on the other hand, believes that the ‘freedom’ granted to drivers by allowing them to use push-to-pass anywhere on track is excessive.

“What they mean by freedom is that you had the one-minute cooldown, I think that’s what they mean. Of course that left some people a bit frustrated, but I would say that it makes it a bit more similar to DRS in that sense,” Zhuravskiy said.

“I don’t think you should be able to just spam it everywhere, I really don’t. I think what this opens the room to is people just spamming it on lap two. Since we can use it in Spa, I could use it on every single straight. I tried it. For me, it’s a big question as to how strategic it will be. Everyone will just spam it on lap two.”

“The whole point of it is that it should imitate DRS. This doesn’t imitate DRS in the slightest, because you could spam it in places where there’s no DRS usually. If we all kind of run out of it in the first few laps and we all use it at the same time…”

“I think people that watch racing understand that most of the action and most of the order switches, they happen in the first few laps, after the field starts spreading towards lap four.”

“I think it’s common sense that everyone will be out of most of their push to pass by lap three or four. I think that’s an issue personally, I don’t think that’s the way it should be. But, you know, we’ll see. Maybe I’m wrong.”

Zhuravskiy believes that there will be “less of a strategic element” now that drivers are able to use their 60 seconds of push-to-pass as they please. He was present at the Spa-Francorchamps tests last month when the cars were programmed with the new rules.

The Drivex driver said that last season, his preferred strategy option was to reserve two of the allocated push-to-pass activations for late in the race, in case of a late safety car. He considers that this strategic element has been eliminated through the new ruleset.

“I think it’s much easier to use push-to-pass now whenever you’ve got these 60 seconds than it used to be before. Before, I feel like there was just more of a strategic element. You had to think about when the car behind was going to activate one of the five push-to-passes, whereas here you think about who activates push-to-pass where,” Zhuravskiy continued.

“Sometimes it’s much harder to predict who activates where now, because you could activate it for two seconds and get just about close enough and overtake. Two seconds is a stretch, of course. You need to push it for more. But I find that it’s strategically a bit different thinking.”

“I think we will rely a lot more on instinct, because, for example, in the [Aragón] race, I used push-to-pass more or less strategically. I tried to predict, ‘Here it would be more.’ You can just never know, pretty much. Since there are 60 seconds and you could press it instead of 15 seconds [five times], it means that there are a lot more opportunities to use it.”

Theodor Jensen also prefers the old ruleset but doesn’t feel it will ultimately have a significant impact on track. 

“Now you can press for five seconds and just release it. To be honest, I don’t think it will really mean anything but I liked the system before better,” he wrote to Feeder Series.

Drivers will try out the 60-second rule in race conditions for the first time next weekend when they will return to Spa-Francorchamps for the opening round of the season.

Header photo credit: Niels Broekema / Dutch Photo Agency