FERRARI and Red Bull have been forced to abandon plans for a different final pre-season test programme from other teams.Both teams had planned to run at Barcelona’s Circuit de Catalunya from March 2-5, rather than March 1-4.But governing body the FIA has told them this is against the rules.It breaks article 22.4 of the sporting regulations, which forbids testing in “the week preceding the first event”, which is in Australia on March 18.This has been interpreted as meaning the week leading up to the week in which the first race is held.Ferrari, who are struggling to understand a new car that is a major departure in design philosophy, initially changed their programme to start and finish a day later than originally planned.Red Bull decided that would better fit their plans, too, and asked Ferrari if they could run alongside them.Ferrari say that the forced change is “not a big issue”.FI testing rules-Teams may not carry out more than 15,000km of track testing in a year-Teams can test only at three official four-day pre-season tests and one three-day test approved by the FIA (this year, it is at Italy’s Mugello track between the Bahrain and Spanish GPs)-No testing in the week preceding the first race-One three-day young driver test is allowed after the end of the season-Four one-day aerodynamic tests are allowed per year, but may be substituted for four hours of full-scale wind-tunnel testing-A team replacing a driver with one who has not raced in F1 in the previous two years can test for one day in preparation for his first race
