Red Bull floor holes ruled to be illegal; no points penalties issued by FIA

The FIA has ruled that holes in front of the RB8's rear wheels are not allowed going forward.

The FIA has clamped down on the controversial Red Bull floor by stating that the holes in front of the RB8's rear wheels are not permitted.

The ruling, which was sent to all the teams, applies to the upcoming Canadian Grand Prix and going onward. It does not affect past results, which is normal when such clarifications occur.

Red Bull's view was that in effect there was a gray area in the rules which did not specify that holes were banned in that particular place. However, the FIA now says “we disagree with this view and consider it implicit that fully enclosed holes may not be located there.”

Other teams had expressed their opposition to RBR's interpretation of the rules applying to ‘surfaces lying on the step plane', and the FIA came to its conclusion after reviewing that input.

Ferrari and McLaren had considered a protest in Monaco but chose not to make one after the race, on the basis that they assumed that the FIA would come to such a conclusion in the days after the race.

Although the consensus is that the RBR holes did not necessarily provide a significant performance advantage the feeling was that it could have led to developments that had a greater impact.

Autoweek has seen a copy of the ruling, the key text of which reads as follows: “Following on from a number of discussions in Monaco, during which it became clear that certain misunderstandings existed, we feel it would be helpful to make our position clear with respect to the presence of a fully enclosed hole in any surface lying on the step plane.

“It has been argued that, as it is not explicitly stated that fully enclosed holes cannot be located in a surface lying on the step plane rearward of a line 450 mm forward of the rear face of the cockpit template, then they may be located in such areas. We disagree with this view and consider it implicit that fully enclosed holes may not be located there.”