As The Race reports, the FIA has approved a sweeping set of draconian new regulations for 2027 designed to slam the door shut on potential cost cap exploitation by Formula 1 teams. For years, the paddock has harbored suspicions that squads were gaming the spending limits by funneling knowledge through non-F1 staff. Whether through special projects divisions working on cycling or yachts—like Red Bull Advanced Technologies, Mercedes Applied Science, Aston Martin Performance Technologies, and Ferrari's recent Hypersail project—the fear has always been that personnel could be paid outside the cost cap while secretly feeding vital improvements back into the grand prix racing machines.
The governing body has repeatedly tried to plug these leaks. Back in 2023, the famous TD45 document demanded that any intellectual property transferred from a technology division to an F1 team had to be fully accounted for under the cost cap. More recently, the FIA cracked down on partial salary allocations for staff splitting time between racing and special projects, ruling that anyone contributing anything to the F1 operation needed their entire wage counted under the cap. But that clearly wasn't enough to kill the paranoia, leading to a brand new 12-page section of F1's Operation Regulations aimed at making future avoidance virtually impossible.
The centerpiece of these new rules is severe physical and digital segregation. Factories must now be carved up into restricted zones where only F1 personnel are permitted, enforced by mandatory electronic access controls and logs that must be kept for three years. Formula 1 staff and non-F1 workers are strictly banned from sharing office spaces, and while facilities like canteens, corridors, and parking lots remain common ground, nobody is allowed to conduct core work in those shared areas. Even shared assets like simulators, windtunnels, and dynos—designated as Restricted Shared Areas—cannot be occupied by both groups simultaneously.
Digital walls are going up just as fast as the physical ones. IT systems must be totally separated with zero cross-access. Knowledge can travel in one direction from the F1 side to the non-F1 side in limited circumstances, but information flowing the other way is strictly prohibited. Messaging systems, external drives, and contractual workarounds are all expressly forbidden under the new measures.
Personnel movement is facing a massive lockdown to prevent teams from shuffling staff around to harvest knowledge while dodging salary caps. Any non-F1 worker transferring to the F1 side must endure a three-month cooling off period with zero F1 or non-F1 activities and no IT access, followed by a contract stipulating 12 months of exclusive F1 work. Moving the other way requires a new contract, fresh IT permissions, a new email address by the end of the prior working day, and a 12-month commitment to non-F1 work—plus, their salary must still count toward that year's cost cap anyway.
Unsurprisingly, these heavy-handed restrictions met fierce resistance from several teams during the approval process by the FIA's World Motor Sport Council this week. But the governing body pushed ahead regardless, leaving sources close to the FIA convinced that multiple squads will have to radically alter their operational structures to stay fully compliant.
