FIA demand clarification from four TOP teams in cost cap investigation

Four of Formula One's front running teams in the form of Red Bull, Aston Martin, Ferrari and Mercedes are due to be investigated by the FIA over concerns about how their extra-curricular activities have an effect on their F1 programmes.

As reported by La Gazzetta dello Sport, the FIA would like to know how much effect any non-F1 activities are having on the performance of their respective cars.

Apart from losing employees to each other, teams have been known to send employees to other projects, in order to avoid redundancies.

The new technical directive, TD45, has been introduced in order for the FIA to be able to control the influence of non-F1 activities on teams and their performance.

Loophole in regulations exposed

Essentially, the FIA have realised that they need to monitor the movement of employees and outside activities much closer, as teams are able to dodge making budget cap related redundancies and save money while doing so.

The bigger teams are in a better position to take advantage of this shortcut, because they have more extensive operations outside of F1.

The fear for the other six teams, is that these employees are able to learn things that may later influence any F1 operations unfairly.

Both Red Bull and Mercedes are involved in the America's Cup, while Ferrari invested a lot of resources into winning the Le Mans 24 hour race recently.

Both Aston Martin and Red Bull will be keen to avoid further hiccups, having received budget cap related penalties last year, while Ferrari and Mercedes - two teams recovering from poor performance, cannot afford to lose anymore ground in their fight to get back to winning ways.

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