MAY 5, 2005

Ecclestone wants testing controls

Bernie Ecclestone told journalists in London ion Wednesday that F1 should restrict its testing during the F1 season to just 10 days and increase activity on the Friday at each Grand Prix.

"My proposal is that you can do 10 days of testing during the season and run on (Friday morning for five or six hours," he told reporters. "If you want to do more than 10 days, then you can't test on Friday. We could put that through in the Formula 1 Commission."

This assumes that there will be a F1 Commission meeting soon as such a gathering is a rarer beast these days than the dodo, the last such meeting having taken place last June.

The issue of testing is a big problem for F1 at the moment with Ferrari testing all the time and the other teams all sticking to a limit of 30 days. Ferrari has yet to win a race this year but you can bet that when the team does win that success is going to be undermined by the team other teams.

The FIA refuses to police testing.