Ferrari and Haas cleared

The FIA have ruled that in future teams that apply for a place on the F1 grid will have to adhere to the rules governing the usage of wind tunnels.

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff does not expect Formula E’s plans for a racing championship for driverless electric cars to threaten Formula One’s popularity, saying the “Roborace” series would not be sport.

“There’s so much talk about Ferrari and Haas and what it means and what did we seek”, he said.

He warned, however, that unless the rules were clarified there could be an “arms race” between teams trying to sign up as many cooperation partners as possible to speed up development of their cars. Ferrari and Haas interpreted the rules in the right way. These include the monocoque and all aerodynamic surfaces. Mercedes said they wanted rulings on what was allowed under the Aerodynamic Testing Restrictions (ATR) and on the transfer of knowledge and data between competitors.

Most notably, with regard to windtunnel use, the FIA has issued a list of activities that would be deemed attempts to circumvent the rules and are therefore outlawed with immediate effect (see list below).

In essence, no team can use another for its own aerodynamic development.

Ferrari and Haas have been cleared of wrongdoing as the FIA tightens collaboration rules.

Other teams, however, were less ambiguous about what the clarification was really about, with Williams deputy Claire Williams declaring that she thinks the sort of thing Ferrari and Haas are doing is “outside of the regulations”. Three months would be considered as a genuine long term arrangement. Normally “gardening leave” is a contractual matter between the employee and the competitor from which that employee is leaving, and “isolation” is a similar arrangement and obligation for the competitor to which the employee is moving.