Possible new rule: Factory visit without prior notice

The work of people in Formula 1 teams' factories is already subject to a lot of rules. For example, there are already rules about wind tunnel time, CFD testing and, of course, there is a budget cap.

To check whether the teams comply with these rules, the FIA has had the right to make factory visits for a long time. So far, they give those visits a long time notice. This does not seem to be the ideal way to catch people breaking the rules.

Without notice

The FIA head of single-seaters, Nikolas Tombazis, tells Motorsport.com that he wants to move towards a situation where the FIA can be in the factory within 10-15 minutes. "We want to go to basically zero notice. We don't think we should be just entering the door and going in, but we do think it would be right to have a process in place where we can just phone them, and somebody comes out and picks up these people and they can say: ‘I want to go and see the wind tunnel or whatever.’”

The FIA has increased the number of staff doing such factory visits. It should now be possible to visit a Formula 1 team's factory every two/three weeks.