OCTOBER 21, 2004

New rules coming out today?

The FIA's deadline for establishing new rules runs out today and it is expected that there will be an announcement, following a fax vote by the Formula 1 Commission. The details of most of the rules are already known but what will be interesting will be the extent to which the tyre companies are restricted. It is not expected that the FIA will go to a control tyre because of fears of action from the European Union, as this would be seen as the federation messing about with commercial arrangements. However, this does put the FIA between a rock and a hard place because there are obviously worries about safety and the tyres are the easiest way to bring down lap times.

The V8 rules for next year will probably go ahead because the manufacturers have all had to take into account the fact that they must be prepared for all eventualities and so work has been pushing ahead with the design of the new engines. This does not mean that there will not be an arbitration case as the teams argue that the FIA is committed to running F1 to V10 rules until the end of 2007.