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No changes to FIA 'gardening leave' rules

The Formula 1 Strategy Group has rejected a call to set a minimum 'gardening leave' requirement on FIA or FOM staff moving to take up a team-based role.

The matter arose because of Renault's decision last year to hire former FIA technical chief Marcin Budkowski.

Teams feared that his knowledge of research and development across all teams could give Renault an unfair advantage.

Budkowski's contract with the FIA was framed under Swiss employment law. That allows for a maximum requirement of only three months before an employee can work for another company in the same sector.

Rival teams protested that this was insufficient in Budkowski's case because of his detailed technical knowledge.

Renault has since agreed to double the time that their new signing has to sit out before moving to Enstone. He will now take up his new role on April 1.

Renault boss Cyril Abiteboul insisted that the team wasn't hiring Budkowski for his inside knowledge of other teams' development.

"I can understand the scepticism of the teams," Abiteboul said this month. "But we are not recruiting someone of the calibre of Marcin in a position of executive director just for what he knows of the other teams."

After discussing the issue, the Strategy Group decided to leave the gardening leave requirements as they are.

FIA and Renault agree to delay Budkowski arrival

It said that a ‘gentlemen’s agreement’ would have to enforce any period beyond that specified by local employment legislation.

The Strategy Group also considered a number of proposed changes to bodywork regulations for 2019.

Additionally, a plea to increase the number of engines in 2018 from three to four was rejected.

Red Bull boss Christian Horner has repeatedly criticised the decision to reduce the number of power units a team can use before incurring penalties.

"We are getting to the point where with 21 races for three engines – it is nuts really," he said recently. "It is a false economy and it would be horrible to see a championship decided on engine penalties."

However FIA President Jean Todt has insisted that there is be no going back on the three-engine rule for 2018.

"To decide we want to go back to four engines, we need to get unanimous agreement," he pointed out. "And we don't have unanimous agreement, so we will have three engines."

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.