The FIA is introducing “deeper technical checks” at Formula 1 races this season and will randomly select one car after each grand prix for disassembly and assessment.
Ahead of the Bahrain Grand Prix, the race stewards have issued a bulletin explaining how a procedure communicated to teams one week ago will be carried out.
FIA technical delegate Jo Bauer will “routinely and randomly select one car” at each race with the intention of completing “deeper technical checks of the cars in the championship.
The car will be disassembled to allow “conformity checks and checks of software and systems”.
Additional checks may be carried out on the chosen team’s other car as well.
The deeper checks do not replace the routine checks carried out by the FIA’s technical department at every event.
If the technical delegate discovers any irregularity they will publish a report and have been ordered by the stewards to “take appropriate steps to safeguard any evidence that may be discovered in these technical checks, including impounding and sealing relevant parts and information”.
This is similar to when a team is investigated for an alleged rules breach and the FIA wishes to examine the parts in question further – like Racing Point’s brake ducts last year.
It is possible for the technical delegate’s findings to trigger a stewards’ investigation, which can be done by the original panel of stewards reconvening, or delegating to the stewards at another race or an independent FIA panel.
The stewards’ bulletin concluded with the emphasis that “while this is a new procedure in this championship, it is routinely carried out in other FIA world championships and competitions”.
