By Adam Cooper, Crain News Service
SILVERSTONE, England (July 10, 2013) — The Federation Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) has confirmed to Formula One teams that the upcoming Silverstone Young Driver Test (YDT) will still take place over three days.
That ends any hopes the Mercedes team might have had that it would be allowed to participate in an extra fourth day, given that its ban from the YDT—due its recent Pirelli testing scandal—applies to three days.
The FIA also decided to ensure that race drivers can only be involved in Pirelli tire testing at Silverstone, after it contemplated allowing teams to do whatever they wanted in terms of car development.
FIA inspectors will ensure that any changes that teams make to the cars when a race driver is running relate only to the tire testing, so teams will not be able to swap wings and other parts around and so on.
However, a race driver could in theory test new parts if they are on the car in the morning, and remain in place all day.
The FIA on July 9 sent the following note to teams:
"1) The young driver training test will remain a three day test from July 17-19.
"2) One specification of tire will be available for the test. The 2012 construction will be used but with the hard, medium and soft 2013 compounds.
"3) Pirelli will be authorized to provide each team with five extra sets of tires for this test, bringing the annual total to 105 sets. All of these sets may be used.
"4) Any driver who has competed in more than two F1 World Championship races may take part in this test, provided that the purpose of him doing so is to test tires for the appointed tire supplier. In order to meet this requirement, all teams shall, in particular, ensure that any changes made to a car at these times are exclusively related to the tire tests set out in the run-plan provided by Pirelli. An FIA observer will be appointed to ensure the regulations are being followed."
This report appeared on the website of Autoweek magazine, a Detroit-based sister publication of Tire Business.