Sauber Unhappy with New Rule

No 3rd Car on Friday
By pitpass.com (12/1/2004)
January 12 2004

Peter Sauber is the latest team boss to express his anger and frustration at the new rule which restricts drivers who have taken part in more than six Grand Prix in the previous two seasons from driving the third car on GP Fridays.

The rule was introduced in order to prevent the six teams that will run a third car from recruiting an experienced tester next season, and is understood to have been pushed forward by team bosses still smarting from the advantages gained by teams that took part in the Friday morning test sessions in 2003.

The new law is to be discussed on Wednesday when the team bosses meet with F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone and the FIA. Last week, talking exclusively to pitpass, Minardi boss Paul Stoddart said he believed the new rule would be thrown out, but there is now widespread belief that the big four teams - Ferrari, McLaren, WilliamsF1 and Renault - will stand firm.

"I don't understand it, it's a joke," said Sauber at tonight's launch of his 2004 challenger. "Maybe there's only one or two teams that push it," he added.

The Swiss outfit didn't run a test driver in 2003, a trend it continues in 2004, though Swiss youngster Neel Jani has been given the title 'test driver' even though he's not expected to do much running.

"He's not going to be a real test driver because we don't need a test driver," admitted Sauber. "We don't do a lot of testing and we will use our normal drivers to do the tests. We will have two cars only on Friday," he added. "Maybe we will change this decision but I don't know."

In fact regular drivers Felipe Massa and Giancarlo Fisichella are both expecting to be used by Ferrari as testers this year, with the Brazilian having already been in action for the Maranello outfit at Jerez last week.

This article was written by pitpass.com and is used with permission.

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