eading Formula 1 team bosses have warned against rule changes that could undermine the cost cutting work achieved in recent years.
There have been concerns that with a tyre supplier entering F1 next year, the present testing restrictions will give teams inadequate time to get to grips with their new rubber.
That comes amid continuing suggestions that the limited testing is unfairly penalising inexperienced drivers and new teams.
The rules banning spare cars have also come under the spotlight after Fernando Alonso was ruled out of Monaco Grand Prix qualifying having damaged his chassis in practice.
While the teams acknowledge that the testing rules in particular might not be perfect at the moment, they are wary of making any steps that increase costs again.
“I think we have reached a very delicate balance over the last couple of years,” said Williams chief executive Adam Parr.
“We have got the costs down to a very much lower level than they were and we have a programme over the next two years to reduce them further under the Resource Restriction Agreement, which is a voluntary agreement within FOTA.
“I am very concerned that we don’t chuck that all out because very few things that one could do are actually going to improve the show very much or at all and they are certainly going to increase costs.
“If you look at the composition of the Formula 1 grid for next year in particular I think you will find that the vast majority of teams are not in a position to increase spending at all and many need to reduce spending quite significantly.
“I think this is not the moment to start changing things that are going to increase costs.”
But Ferrari chief Stefano Domenicali is concerned that the change of tyre supplier in particular will be problematic without more testing – or a change to grand prix weekend formats to increase mileage.
“With a change of tyres it will be crucial not to arrive at the last minute without any proper testing, otherwise maybe we will have big problems during the race weekend which is what we don’t want,” he said.
“Maybe, and this is another point that we are thinking, to see without changing and going back to test team recruitment as this is not correct and is totally wrong, but to see if we can select a different weekend format or extended day for testing in order to make sure we can do a little bit more.”
Mercedes’ Ross Brawn agreed with Parr’s stance that the rules are broadly correct at present, but suggested a temporary extension of the testing allowance to cover the change of tyres.
“The economy is very delicate at the moment and we need to be careful to take a view for all the teams in Formula 1,” Brawn said.
“Clearly we need to have some specific testing to make sure the tyres are sorted properly. We need to manage that.
“I think on the subject of testing overall we mustn’t go back to having separate test teams.
“If there is any testing introduced it has to be integrated in a way that we don’t need extra personnel to do it.”
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