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Teams dissent over Friday test loss

As more emerged in Suzuka about the proposals for Formula 1's future that have been agreed by the F1 Commission, it is fair to say that there is concern that more has not been done to save money through more stringent testing restrictions

On the subject of the 48 days of testing and abolition of Friday testing at race weekends, Williams technical director Patrick Head said: "Fundamentally, Ferrari, is extremely influential in this business and they are the people that have said they will not accept a limitation on testing more than restricting the current situation of five days following a grand prix down to four days. And when something has to be agreed unanimously, and one team says I am not even prepared to discuss a limitation on testing, then there isn't much point in taking it an awful lot further."

On the subject of the lost Friday qualifying, Paul Stoddart said: "Figures were presented in the F1 Commission meeting last week that showed certainly in the UK it was important. The viewing figures were there. ITV, I believe, took it every Friday and showed it on the Friday evening. The marketing figures said yes, so it is a very strange one to me."

On the subject of Friday's meaningfulness in terms of the actual racing, BAR technical director Geoff Willis explained: "It didn't take very long this year to realise there wasn't a big penalty if you didn't qualify well on Friday, as long as you weren't in the first five out on Saturday. And I am fairly sure that during the year various people ran certain amounts of fuel to make it slightly harder for their competitors to see exactly where they were. It was always the case that Friday afternoon qualifying was never the same as qualifying last year, when people went as fast as the car will go."

To which Stoddart retorted: "Well, we always tried to go as fast as we could, and the highlight of the season was Magny-Cours when we were quickest [in varied weather conditions] and we were the lead story on the evening news in Holland. But now that's been taken away."

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