The Formula 1 Commission met in Spielberg on Friday ahead of the Austrian Grand Prix and decided to increase its $140 million-per-team annual budget cap to help with the burden of inflation and rising energy and freight bills.
F1 chief Stefano Domenicali, FIA President Mohammed Ben Sulayem, F1 Motorsports head Ross Brawn and all 10 team principals gathered on Friday to discuss a series of topics.
“Rapidly increasing inflation rates since the end of 2021 have affected Formula One teams, and it is the opinion of the FIA and Formula One that this creates a risk of non-compliance with the financial regulations if actions are not taken,” the governing body said.
This was approved by the required majority, with support from the FIA, Formula 1 and nine of the 10 teams.
There has also been a development regarding the draft Technical Directive which was issued ahead of the British Grand Prix and addresses safety concerns relating to the vertical oscillation of the cars (porpoising).
The FIA says that the following discussion with the teams, and to allow teams enough time to make necessary updates to the plank and skid assemblies which will allow “a fair application of the metric used to measure this oscillation across all cars”, will come into effect from the Belgian Grand Prix onwards.
“Enhanced controls by the FIA introduced in Canada will continue, while several proposed actions to address this issue in the 2023 Technical Regulations were also discussed and are set to be taken in time for the next meeting of the Technical Advisory Committee,” FIA said.
A majority also agreed to update the regulations to allow pre-season testing to take place outside of Europe, four days before the first Grand Prix of the season.
Meanwhile, the 2026 Power Unit regulations were also on the agenda, with the FIA saying the package of regulations “is close to finalization”.
(Inputs from IANS)