Ferrari and Red Bull have both been forced to amend their revised test dates after the governing body, the FIA, stepped in.
The two outfits had planned to test in Barcelona between Friday 2nd and Monday 5th, which meant they would skip the first day of the final pre-season test on Thursday, to instead run a day longer.
The FIA has however clarified regulation 22.4C, which states that apart from some straightline testing and a Young Driver test, no testing may take place: “between the start of the week preceding the first Event of the Championship and 31 December of the same year.”
Ferrari and Red Bull saw this as the week commencing Monday 12th, with the season opening race the following weekend. However the FIA has informed all the teams that this is the week prior to the first race, therefore Sunday is the last available test date.
This also means that both Lotus, which lost three days to a suspension problem, and Marussia, which is yet to test its car due to it failing the mandatory crash tests, won’t be able to make up for lost test time.
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