FOTA Agrees to In-Season Testing Ban for 2010

The much-controversial in-season testing ban imposed by the International Automobile Federation (FIA) for the 2009 season will apparently make the F1 rule book in 2010 also. And it's apparently with unanimous consent that the Formula One Teams Association (FOTA), practically the only organization who had the power to pressure the FIA into changing that rule, voted for the continuance of in-season testing ban.

According to Finland's Turun Sanomat newspaper – a highly authoritative source when it comes to F1 reports – the FOTA already discussed the matter during the course of last weekend, and all teams agreed not to scrap the ban for 2010.

The rules has suffered plenty of criticism throughout the 2009 season, especially because more reserve drivers than ever made their debut in the series in the mid-season. Drivers like Jaime Alguersuari, Romain Grosjean, Luca Badoer (even is he's an old F1 driver, he hadn't stepped into the F60 before debuting with it at Valencia) and Kamui Kobayashi jumped into their F1 challengers without any prior testing of the 2009 machineries.

That raised several safety issues within the F1 teams, but neither was ready to give up their veto right to disable the ban. Back when Michael Schumacher was certain of his F1 return before the European Grand Prix, he had to turn to Ferrari's Corse Clienti department to test a 2-year old car with demonstration tires, as Frank Williams publicly stated he would vote against an exception to the FIA rules.

During the same meeting of the FOTA, Martin Whitmarsh was chosen new CEO of the team's alliance, replacing Ferrari's Luca di Montezemolo. Also, according to the aforementioned source, Ferrari's 3rd car per manufacturer proposal was not even brought into discussion during the course of last weekend's meeting.