As Motorsport.com Italia reports, the World Motor Sport Council has officially approved a new set of regulations designed to strictly separate Formula 1 team personnel from any extra-F1 projects, effectively shutting down the sharing of information and resources. While the goal is to clamp down on budget cap enforcement, the result will force constructors to completely restructure their corporate operations and ultimately spend more money.
It appears the FIA is acting after teams already found ways to exploit loopholes, utilizing personnel and facilities officially assigned to outside activities to prop up their grand prix squads. In a strict sense, closing these gray areas makes sense to eliminate imbalances between teams that can leverage broader corporate expertise and those that rely solely on grand prix racing. Yet, the newly approved rules radically change how F1 squads operate, treating them as if they have zero connection to the automotive giants that house them.
The 2027 Formula 1 regulations now include an extra eleven pages dedicated to section F6, introducing five new articles under the title: Physical and IT segregation between F1 activities and non-F1 activities. The name itself is heavy-handed, but the purpose is transparent: to stop the limited transfer of know-how between the grand prix team and other business units, whether that involves product development, the WEC, Formula E, or even sailing projects.
Under the previous system, engineers could split their time and expertise between different divisions, allowing teams to charge only a specific percentage of a salary to the budget cap. Now, the governing body has gone far beyond that by forcing a complete division of F1 from any other corporate enterprise, placing major barriers around technological assets like simulators, wind tunnels, dynamic rigs, data centers, and IT systems.
The new rules enforce a rigorous segregation where staff not assigned to the grand prix division are banned from entering the F1 factory, and F1 workers cannot visit colleagues in other departments. It even dictates how common areas like entrances, stairs, canteens, wellness zones, warehouses, parking lots, and gardens can be used, provided they do not become workstations.
Personnel transfers between F1 and other sectors will no longer be direct, requiring new employment contracts, deactivated ID badges, and disabled emails. Furthermore, any employee leaving the F1 team will face a one-year waiting period before returning. Meanwhile, employees moving into extra-F1 programs will not only need a new agreement but must also undergo a three-month gardening leave where they cannot work on any company business at all.
This wild tightening of the rules forces manufacturers into a corner where projects outside of grand prix racing will be starved of synergies and collaboration. Rather than saving money, teams may be forced to hire external specialists for non-F1 programs, driving up overall headcounts and operational costs across the board.
