Ferrari submits test cut plan

The team is advocating a testing limit based on mileage rather than days - a move that FIA president Max Mosley is publicly supporting.

The remaining F1 teams have declared their willingness to support an allocation of 30 days testing per season, but Mosley believes that Ferrari's suggestion is more practical.

"The point that Ferrari made - that I must say I hadn't thought of - was that the current proposal of 30 days, with a maximum of two cars on the circuit, is hopelessly flawed because, firstly, it doesn't help the small teams because they don't do 30 days testing anyway.

"But for a big team it's an uneconomic way of going testing. Because to take full advantage of the day that you are allowed with the two cars, firstly you have got to have two complete crews, one to run them during the day and another to prepare them overnight so that you don't waste any time from your day. So that's very expensive. On top of that it might rain so you would have your entire crew sitting there doing nothing because there is a risk that your test would be aborted if there is a shower.

"If you are allowed two cars on the circuit at any one time, you got to have three cars there so that if any one car is out of action you have got another car. It becomes phenomenally expensive.

"Therefore the sensible way to limit testing is by mileage and not by number of days. If it rains it doesn't matter. You don't have to work on it all night because it doesn't matter how many days you're there so long as you don't exceed the miles. That's the Ferrari point on testing and I think it is absolutely right."

Ferrari's rivals are frustrated with the Italian team, which owns a private test track at Fiorano and also owns the Mugello circuit in Italy, because of its opposition to their recommendations for testing restrictions. The team's tyre supplier Bridgestone also heavily subsidises much of Ferrari's testing as it relies on the team for tyre development work.

"(Ferrari's) feeling was that certainly there should be testing restrictions," he said. "It's a pity that the other teams didn't turn up to hear the other side to that, but to me it seems overwhelming."

Mosley revealed that Ferrari believes it could operate on half its present level of testing if required to by the new rules.

"What they think is that they currently do 30,000 miles in the winter and 30,000 during the season," he said. "They think that could easily come down to 15 and 15 and of what they do at the moment, about 50 per cent is tyre testing."