The FIA are still looking for ways to cut costs in Formula 1 and they have come up with a raft of solutions which include limiting wind tunnel usage by F1 teams.
At a meeting of the World Motor Sport Council, the FIA announced new regulations which is hoped will reduce the money spent within the sport. The wind tunnel regulations state that teams will only be permitted to use one wind tunnel, and that each tunnel may only be used 15 times in an eight-hour day, and that they can only be used five days a week.
They have further limited wind tunnel simulations by saying that wind tunnel tests must be with air at atmospheric pressures, the maximum wind speed should be 50 m/s, and the maximum scale of the model used is to be 60% with only one model being used per run.
Straight-line aerodynamic testing is to be banned with teams only being allowed to test full-scale track running at FIA-approved test venues. With concerns that teams may push wind tunnel engineers into CFD (computational fluid dynamics), the FIA have decided that only a limited number of employees may work in this area although they have yet to announce what this figure will be.
The FIA are also looking to place restrictions on rig tests, design, manufacturing, the suspension, braking systems, hydraulics, bodywork, weight distribution, circuit testing and number of team personnel attending races.
The one area where no restrictions will be placed is on the KERS (Kinetic Energy Recovery systems) which are being introduced as of 2009.
The full proposals by the FIA will be released to teams at a team principals meeting on 11 January 2008.
