The FIA International Tribunal has announced that Mercedes is reprimanded and suspended from the forthcoming Young Driver Test at Silverstone.
In addition Pirelli has also been reprimanded.
In essence then Mercedes has been found guilty but has got away relatively lightly. The team now loses the opportunity to run Sam Bird over three days at Silverstone, with unlimited mileage and updates on the car and so on – and with 100% focus on 2013 tyres.
However rivals will point out that the Barcelona test gave useful extra mileage to the race drivers.
The biggest loser is arguably test driver Bird, who had not yet driven the W04. It would also have been very useful for the team to have him try the car and thus aid correlation with the simulator.
Adam Cooper F1 
With this penalty it would seem that the FIA wants to be seen as doing something, without doing anything substantial.
I’m still baffled as to what the FIA attitude to Pirelli is.
Seems pretty simple, do a three day test with race drivers and lose a test with drives no one knows anything about. Seems like a win win. What do the team lose by getting reprimanded anyway?
Seems like fair punishment for Mercedes. Is any mention made of tightening up the rule book to avoid this future ambiguity?
I´d take a three day test with current racedriver lineup alone on a track over a three day YDT with one driver on a crowded track ANY DAY! Mercedes is not to blame for this, it´s FIA that shows not to have spine enough to serve a proper punishment.
Just for the FIA, Pirelli and Mercedes, I count 2 legal directors, 3 QCs, 3 legal counsel, 3 lawyers and 2 members of the legal department, for a total of 13, then there are others “attending the hearing” who probably have legal backgrounds, plus tribunal staff, plus 4 more lawyers from other teams.
So next time you hear someone complaining about how hard it is to get into F1, tell them to stop wasting their time driving cars and go to law school.
Pirelli has been reprimanded. What does that actually mean? Does the FIA send them a sternly worded letter? If Mercedes are somehow at fault, why isn’t Pirelli?
I’m confused as to how the rubber meets the road……….sorry, couldn’t resist.
No penalty at all. Basically the FIA has opened this up to everyone.