May 9 (GMM) Williams' Narain Karthikeyan has added his voice to criticism of the rules governing testing in formula one this year.
The Indian, who is a secondary tester for F1's Grove based team, turned to a cockpit in the A1GP series recently because the test drivers' workload is so low in 2007.
Karthikeyan's plight is similar to that of his colleagues, as teams' needs for secondary test drivers has been reduced.
19-year-old Sebastian Vettel, for example, hit out this week at the restrictive rules, which has forced BMW-Sauber to scrap his role as a Friday driver in 2007.
"If you ask any of the test drivers, everyone will speak about how it has affected them," Karthikeyan told the Indian newspaper Hindustan Times.
The changes to the Friday rules, meanwhile, were complemented in 2007 with a limit of just one car for group tests.
Karthikeyan continued: "I am sure teams will realise that it is not going to be beneficial in the long run.
"As far as development of the car goes, and nurturing new test drivers is concerned, it is bad."
Williams' race driver Alex Wurz, meanwhile, insisted that he thought the restrictive rules had not even cut costs.
"Money is never saved in formula one," he told motorline.cc. "All the money that comes in is spent, and the amount that comes in is dependent on the value of the sponsorship and nothing else."
Written: Wed, 09 May 2007 12:13:31
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