PARIS — The FIA's World Motor Sport Council have approved new regulations to prevent teams' non-F1 staff from working on Formula 1 projects, closing a loophole that allowed spending to be concealed within other programmes. The federation have introduced five new articles in the 2027 operational regulations after some teams managed to take advantage of staff and facilities officially allocated to other activities to bypass the budget cap.
The aim is to prevent an imbalance between teams with other activities and those with no other programmes other than grand prix racing, and to radically alter the way F1 teams operate. Until now it was possible to split an engineer's expertise between two different activities, declaring which part of his role was dedicated to F1 and which to the other programme and attributing only a percentage to the budget cap. The new rules target the already limited transfer of know-how between the F1 team and the company's other business units, where spending was concealed within non-racing programmes such as product development, WEC, Formula E or sailing.
The FIA are now genuinely separating F1 from all other activities, with significant restrictions imposed on the use of technological assets including simulators, wind tunnels, test benches, data centres and IT systems. Under the new segregation measures, non-F1 staff will be barred from entering the F1 factory and those working on grand prix activities will not be allowed to visit colleagues in other divisions. The F1 team is therefore destined to become a 'fortress' within the brand's premises.
Transfers will also be tightly controlled. A move of staff from F1 to another sector can no longer be direct and will require a new contract detailing new duties, with their company badge and email disabled. An employee who leaves the team will not be able to return until at least one year has passed. Conversely, those working on non-F1 programmes who switch to the F1 squad must undergo a three-month gardening period during which they will not be allowed to engage in any company activities. Those who are an integral part of automotive giants will have to function entirely independently of their parent companies, a change expected to increase staff numbers and costs as non-F1 programmes turn to external candidates and forgo synergies and opportunities for collaboration.