Lauda unhappy with lag in FIA technical decisions

Mercedes non-executive chairman Niki Lauda wants the FIA to speed up its process of deciding the legality of a car or its components.

Lauda pointed to several ongoing investigations involving issues with Ferrari which the Austrian believes are simply taking too much time to clarify.

"There have been rumours about the smoke produced by the Ferrari when it starts," said the F1 legend.

"We're quite limited in the amount of oil you can burn."

But Lauda also referred to a pending probe into the battery pack of the Scuderia's SF71-H.

• Drivers gaming VSC system, says Vettel, but Whiting disagrees

"That means they (the FIA) are investigating something. We do not think they're illegal, what I'm saying is that you cannot just investigate forever," he told Bild am Sonntag.

"Someday you have to decide: Is it ok or not? For me it has taken too long."

Ferrari's new halo-attached aero mirrors were also called into question in Barcelona, with the governing body ultimately declaring the assembly as illegal, although tolerated in Spain for practical purposes.

"We think it's about the interpretation of the term 'attachment' and we think what they have done is not an attachment," said FIA race director Charlie Whiting.

"Now we will send out a technical directive to the teams where we will state everything very clearly."

Whiting said that clarifying a rule after a team pushes the boundaries is "normal", especially when rivals express "a difference of opinion".

"If it was clear that the Ferrari solution was against the rules, we would have not allowed it in Barcelona. Instead we are now going to explain everything," he added.

Gallery: The beautiful wives and girlfriends of F1 drivers

Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter