09/06/2013
NEWS STORY
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After much lobbying by some of the bigger teams, in-season testing looks set to return in 2014.
It is understood that at a meeting of the Sporting Working Committee at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve on Saturday evening, a majority of the teams voted in favour of the return of in-season testing, even though it will further drive up costs at a time when there is already growing concern over the financial stability of as many of seven of the current teams.
While the plan has yet to get the approval of the World Motor Sport, it is widely thought this will be a formality.
It has already been agreed that testing will get underway as early as January next year, a move precipitated by the introduction of the new engine formula, one of the biggest changes to the sport's regulations in living memory.
However, the majority of the teams want in-season testing, even it was they - under the guise of the teams' alliance FOTA - that agreed to scrap the practice.
Although the venues have yet to be identified, it is understood that the tests will take place on the days following a number of Grands Prix. Previously, tyre tests would take place ahead of races, a move which, in the eyes of many, made the subsequent races all the more predictable since conditions between test and race barely changed.
Ferrari, which has been calling for the return of in-season testing ever since it was done away with, was one of the six teams, along with McLaren Mercedes Lotus Red Bull and Williams, that discussed the issue in Monaco under the guise of the ‘Strategy Group'.
It is understood that in return for the approval of in-season testing the teams will trade in their rights to promotional filming days and straight-line tests.