News on FIA ruling on exhausts

The FIA have not ruled out the exhausts of Williams and Caterham as illegal.

Caterham ran a piece of bodywork over the Coanda exhaust exit on its Renault-powered CT03 at Jerez and was followed by Williams which had two pieces over the exit when it launched the FW35 at the Circuit de Catalunya yesterday. The exhaust solutions have been attracting a lot of interest from the teams. Williams’ Mike Coughlan said, “For me the Caterham one is clearly not allowed, but ours is OK, because if you look at ours it’s actually not a single piece, it’s two pieces”.

Williams is undergoing discussions with Charlie Whiting in Barcelona. It has raised questions on whether the bodywork would pass scrutineering and as a result “the team are now seeking further clarification on this and a decision as to whether this design will be carried forward will be made before the first race”.

Williams has confirmed that no clarification has been issued by the FIA. They will continue to run the solution as required by its testing schedule. Caterham have also gone ahead with is and have stated that “we will continue to work through our test programme as normal” and stressed that it can run any parts it so wishes during the pre-season tests.

A scrutineering test will happen on the Thursday and the cars will have to pass that ahead of the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne.