@Bob as always, gatekeeping.

Honestly, I came to the conclusion that the only viable option with these people is to accept they exist, let them cry over the inevitable change and wait for them to naturally disappear.

If you can't see why this is important by yourself, you just lack the basic knowledge, common sense, awareness that is needed to grasp the concepts behind. They will always, inevitably, rebate with unrelated arguments, whataboutism and such.

@avroanson because you don't do it it doesn't mean everyone does the same.

I'm using it and I'm happy there's such a simple change I can make to be more inclusive. I don't have the same luck with my own language, but with English is pretty easy to adopt they/them and simply forget about the gender.

You are missing the fact that F1 Academy is not a FIA series, so has no FIA rulebook.

Avro: "Rubbish. Nobody ever said “They’re over there” when referring to a single friend."

I beg to differ. If I was sitting down and writing, I expect I would write "he is" or "she is", but in conversation I know I sometimes use "they" to mean he or she. This is especially true when the question is genderless? For example, Q: Have you see the person selling the tickets? A: Yes, they're over there. Just because it isn't common in your nek of the woods deosn't mean it isn't commonly used in other areas, and English is defined by the way it is used, not by arbitrary dogmatic rules invented by the Victorians.

Dot com: "Isn’t that perhaps because they’re referring to a male driver?"

Isn't that exactly the pount, trying to break away from the assumption that drivers will be male?

Avro, "it" refers to an object, not an individual of unspecified gender. We do have such words in english, for example, child is a singular substitute for boy and girl, person for man or woman. Why do you think "they" isn't an acceptable substitute for him or her, or "their" for his or her?

BINGO "unclutched"!

JHG "Even weirder is the timing – no woman (or person of whatever gender) is anywhere near competitive motorsport at the moment."

I think Sophia Floersch might beg to differ. And if you haven't seen it already, look on YouTube for "170mph F3 crash in Macau (Sophia Floersch)". If that doesn't make you wince, nothing will.

Regarding timing, remember this change is for F2 and F3 regs, F1 having already done it. F2 cars are also being redesigned in 2024 to make them more like F1 cars. The current generation of F2 cars are heavy and clunky, and this probably disadvantages women in the F2 class, making it difficult for them to excel in that category. So the timing of these wording changes is actually quite appropriate, and just one of several initiatives aimed at removing barriers.

Michael, I don't think a salary cap is the answer. In other sports, such as cricket, football, etc, the sport sells TV rights for the premier levels and uses that money to build up infrastructure, support the lower leagues, run school programmes, and so on. Those sports do not need to cap what stars can earn in order to finance itself. In motorsport, Max Mosley gave his mate Bernie Ecclestone the TV rights to F1 in perpetuity. The profits of F1 are used to make shareholders rich, and the sport survives on crumbs from the master's table.

Ludewig:

And whatever you do, ignore the fact that the more feminist a country is and the freeer women are to choose, the more traditional the choice of jobs is.

What? where do you get that "fact" from? Is there any truth inthat at all, or is it a made-up fact used to justify an anti-equality position? What do you consider to be traditional career choices? Lack of opportunity does not make something a traditional career choice.

It would seem a lot of appearing to do things, without actually having to do anything.

Youth/Grass Roots is always where you can make the biggest change going forward. How about looking at the blockers or inclusivity problems there if they are serious? The problem there is, you run into actual difficult problems adn tough choices that no one wants to discuss.

Everyone cares, since this is by far the most commented article of the moment here in Racefans.

Good point Steve, but wouldn't it be clearer still to say "Unless the car has used"?

To get technical for a moment, sex and gender are not the same thing. Sex is as determined by chromosomes, and there is male (XY), female (XX), and very rarely there are trisominies of XXX or XXY. Gender is the way someone identifies and presents themselves, so someone can be genetically XX but identify as male gender. Sex is physical. Gender is psychological. That is how those words are used in UK English, but other languages and dialects may have different conventions.

Maybe I'm just a simple person, but phrased like that, I cannot really come up with one.

@SteveP

It's very common to use the masculine form by default, even when it also applies to women. It's just a feminist delusion that the previous wording would keep women from competing. There is absolutely no way that the stewards, race director, etc would not just interpret the rules as applying to a female driver as well.

And whatever you do, ignore the fact that the more feminist a country is and the freeer women are to choose, the more traditional the choice of jobs is.

Choice. Simply that.
Having said that, the rule as previously written would potentially allow a female driver to only use one tyre specification - because the rule says what he must do and patently does not apply to a woman. Thus, the change makes the rule fairer to men by forcing women to comply in the same fashion.