As reported by Autosport last week, the FIA has closed off a potential loophole that some teams may have been using in getting personnel outside of their main F1 team to help work on car design and development projects.
The fear was that some squads were employing staff outside of the cost cap to work on separate special projects, such as designing road cars, yachts and bicycles, but then making use of any extra knowledge they gained that could be of benefit to the F1 operation.
Teams operating in this way could have a big advantage over squads that were accounting for all their activities, as their official spending would have been less because these extra staff were effectively working off-book.
Amid fears from several teams that the use of non-F1 staff was being exploited in such a manner, the FIA responded with the issuing of a technical directive earlier this year to stamp out any knowledge being passed to F1 teams that is not accounted for under the cost cap.
TD45, as it is known, has now come into force and makes it clear that, from January 1 this year, any IP passed from a technical division back into an F1 squad must be included in cost cap spending.
The FIA is taking the matter seriously and, as part of a much more detailed analysis of team activities, Autosport has learned that it is being active in checking what non-F1 staff at teams are actually doing.
It is understood that, as part of enhanced monitoring introduced since the first cost cap submissions were made in 2021, a deeper probe has been made to check on non-F1 activities.
This now includes interviewing staff who were declared to be outside the scope of the F1 cost cap, to try to get a better understanding of exactly what projects they were working on.
Furthermore, samples of work completed by such staff are being analysed to ensure that they are totally separate from the F1 team and that no knowledge is being passed across.
Source: Autosport