F1 row brewing over Friday testing

The other F1 teams have noticed that the decision by Jordan Grand Prix, Renault F1 and Minardi to forego more than 10 days of free testing, in favour of their exclusive new Friday morning test session during Grand Prix meetings, might give them an unfair advantage in selecting tyre compounds, reports AUTOSPORT magazine. "Unfair!" is the call

Feb 13, 2003, 11:44 PM

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The FIA is standing by its decision to compel teams not participating in the Friday session to choose their compound before the Thursday technical inspection procedure. The governing body says that any benefit is a trade-off for the teams committing to only 10 independent test days during the season.

"The testing on Friday was supposed to be a cost-cutting device," said one team principal, "not a means for Renault to work its way through a lot of different tyre constructions before making its choice mid-morning."

Renault F1 MD Flavio Briatore is unrepentant: "We have two hours testing at the place we [are going to] race, so for tyre choice it is much better. A lot of people didn't think about doing this, because they thought it was for the low-budget teams."