FIA director Nikolas Tombazis has spoken out about the rule changes being implemented for extreme conditions in the future.
Speaking about the scoop which allows for cold air flow, he explained: “This will give an extra bit of weight for the cars, something like probably two kilos, which will be mandatorily put on and mandatorily [must be] used for the purpose of cooling the driver. So, that will enable solutions such as cooling vests.”
Quizzed on whether some teams may look to exploit the changes, Tombazis admitted that they are looking into whether the new rules will allow for that to occur. “We need to work out some of the details,” he continued. “But we want to make it clear that it’s not something that you can use for any form of dodgy advantage.
“It’s really for the purpose of [cooling] and it’s mandatory. Therefore, you could put the ballast in the seat, but you’d be a bit of an idiot because, like in Qatar, we saw drivers towards the latter part of the race make mistakes. I think that it is clearly not in the teams’ interest [to ignore it].”