OCTOBER 24, 2005

Third cars stay in F1 in 2006

The F1 Commission agreed that the teams could continue to use third cars next season, despite the fact that some teams wanted to get rid of the rules, which gives the big teams an advantage. The rule was designed to help the smaller teams get a little testing at races but with so many big teams the rules meant that this year McLaren was able to run a third car and gain set-up advantage from that. The rules will remain as before with the top four teams not being allowed to run third cars, which means that that next year we will see Williams, Honda, Red Bull, BMW, Midland and Squadra Toro Rosso running a third car on Fridays (assuming they can all afford it). Thus far only Jordan has announced a third driver although Red Bull Racing is very likely to be running Neel Jani. Honda has a variety of drivers under contract but we expect to see James Rossiter in the third car while the third seats at Williams, BMW and Squadra Toro Rosso are up for grabs.

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