FIA carries out mirrors test

Teams have been more aggressive this season with the design and location of their wing mirrors, and, in particular, Ferrari, Renault, Red Bull Racing and Toro Rosso have pushed the area to the limit by siting their mirrors on the sidepod of the car rather than on the cockpit sides.

That move has led to suggestions that visibility could be an issue for drivers in those cars - with the aerodynamic advantages of moving the mirrors away from the cockpit possibly outweighing any potential penalty of the drivers not being able to see properly what is going on behind them.

With some drivers voicing their worries about visibility in Malaysia when the issue of backmarkers was discussed in the drivers' briefing, the FIA duly completed a test of all the car designs on Thursday in Bahrain. Not all drivers took part in the test, but all cars were tested in a bid to give the FIA an idea of how good the visibility is on each car.

The test is conducted by the driver sitting in the car. He has to read out a number that has been written onto a piece of white paper being held up by an FIA representative who stands 10 metres behind the car.

The FIA regulations state: "The FIA technical delegate must be satisfied by practical demonstration that the drivers, when seated normally, can clearly define following vehicles."

Red Bull Racing's Mark Webber backed the FIA move - with his team having moved their mirrors back onto the side of the cockpit after the season-opening Australian Grand Prix.

"It is good they are checking," said Webber. "Sometimes some of the backmarkers aren't so hot. At the last drivers' meeting Charlie (Whiting, FIA race director) kept ramming home: 'Blue flags, blue flag - tidy up your act.' And then we said that's assuming people can see out of the mirrors. So that is why the FIA are doing it."

But not all drivers are convinced about the tests. One told autosport.com: "It's one thing testing the mirrors sat stationary in the garage, but quite another to tell what is happening when the car is vibrating at 300km/h. Plus, you can never test to see if a driver is actually going to use them."

Webber said that vibrations of the mirrors on the sidepods were the reason why Red Bull had reverted to the cockpit mounted version - although he was adamant that poorly designed mirrors were unlikely to ever be a major safety concern.

"Pedro (de la Rosa) raced here a few years ago and he said he couldn't see anything out of his mirrors for the whole race. The mirrors are a pain in the arse for the designer, they don't make the car go faster, they slow it down.

"So I don't think there is a real safety issue. Will there ever be a really nasty shunt because of the mirrors aren't correct? Don't know, but there could be a clumsy, clumsy coming together if the mirrors aren't straight."

Despite Red Bull's issues with the sidepod wing mirrors, Renault's Giancarlo Fisichella says he has no complaints about his.

"For me they are really good. The problem at the beginning of the year was a big vibration and them moving, but we fixed those two problems. And now they are perfect.

"They give fantastic visibility. You need to move a little bit more the head (to see), but for me it is a better move than last year."