Mercedes team boss Ross Brawn is seeking clarification on the curfew rules during F1 weekends, after his team were forced to use one of their 'joker' curfew passes when marketing personnel arrived in the paddock early on Saturday.
The curfew regulations were brought in for 2011 in an effort to help cut costs and assist the staff of F1 teams.The rules forbid team personnel to work on site during set times overnight during F1 weekends, though in Singapore the times were altered to allow for the evening sessions.
Mercedes were one of three teams to be found to have breached the curfew, along with Red Bull and Virgin, after marketing staff arrived in the paddock earlier than the curfew allowed on Saturday.
But Brawn believes that the rules of the curfew need to be adjusted to allow for non-technical team members to work.
"I think there is a little bit of confusion that we just need to tidy up," he told the Autosport website when asked about his team's curfew issues.
He explained: "The teams' perspective is that we have the crew of 47, which includes engineers and the various people working on the car, and the reason for the curfew was to make sure that that team, once it was reduced in size, did not get overworked.
"We didn't want to have a situation where that crew worked for a solid 48 hours because of course, if you constrict the size of the team and you don't change the workload, then all you do is work longer hours."
He added that: "I think the curfew has worked very well. Everybody's understanding was that it applies to the 47 people, which is a list that is generated and everybody knows who they are and they were people who abide by the curfew.
"In our case, a couple of our marketing commercial girls came to meet some guests at 3.30pm rather than 4pm and broke the curfew, so that is something that we need to discuss with the FIA to tidy up.
"I cannot quite see an objective in having a curfew for marketing staff. It is something that does need tidying up; I think it is just a misunderstanding."
The blanket ban on team personnel entering the paddock during a curfew is believed to be in order to prevent teams circumventing the restriction on engineering workers by training marketing staff in more technical areas.
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
