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The FIA has announced a revamp to the driving standards and penalty guidelines for F1 drivers after a crunch meeting in Qatar last season.

After a number of controversial penalties which were handed out, including to Carlos Sainz for contact with Liam Lawson at the 2025 Dutch GP, drivers sat down with the governing body in Lusail for a detailed conversation around the driving standard and penalty guidelines as part of a collaborative process between all parties to remove doubt and strengthen the guidelines stewards must follow when officiating incidents by.

Sainz was issued with a time penalty and two penalty points on his superlicence for the collision at Turn 1 with Lawson, but the points were subsequently expunged from his licence following a successful right of review process from Williams.

It has been agreed that for the 2026 season, penalty points will only be imposed on a driver for "dangerous, reckless, or apparently deliberate actions resulting in a collision or for other unacceptable or unsportsmanlike behaviour."

Ahead of the 2026 season, Haas driver Oliver Bearman enters the campaign on 10 penalty points, with the threshold for an automatic one-race ban being 12.

The stewards are set to receive extra flexibility in imposing the standards, with "leniency" to be shown in decisions where a driver is trying to avoid a collision, such as when they lock up but still collide with a rival.

Here, the stewards will factor in the "laws of physics", taking over when a driver is fully locked up on the brakes and is unable to avoid the collision they were attempting to.

An area of particular controversy in recent years has been drivers diving to the apex of a corner to be ahead and earn the right to space, even if this means another driver is being forced wide, as happened between Max Verstappen and Lando Norris at the 2024 United States and Mexico City GPs.

Now, the stewards will recognise that in overtaking manoeuvres, when a car has gained the right to a corner, "the other car simply cannot disappear."

Further tweaks have been made for "expected behaviour" under yellow and blue flag conditions.

The new penalty guidelines and driving standard guidelines are available to read here.