FIA confirms optional ’stepped nose’ covers for 2013

Teams will be able to cover the unseemly ’stepped noses’ on their 2013 cars, it has emerged.

We quoted the FIA’s Charlie Whiting as saying in July that the governing body "is aware of the dissatisfaction of the fans in relation to the appearance of this year’s cars".

A rule tweak for 2012 caused the conspicuous height discrepancy between the top of the monocoque and the nose cone, resulting in the ’step’ on most of this year’s car designs.

Also in July, we reported that teams were discussing a rule tweak for 2013 that would allow the step to be covered by a "structurally irrelevant" laminate.

That rule tweak has now been enshrined in the technical regulations for 2013, F1’s official website reports.

"The fairings will not affect the car’s aerodynamics or impact-protection properties," the report said.

The regulations refer to the step nose cover as "an optional, single piece, non-structural fairing of prescribed laminate".

The 2013 rules have also banned the so-called double-DRS that has appeared on the Mercedes this year, although it is understood the new regulation will not apply to Lotus’ interpretation.

Meanwhile, Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport reports that the teams have written a letter to the FIA, pleading with the governing body to refrain from dramatically increasing the entry fees for 2013.

The FIA reportedly wants to scrap the current flat EUR 309,000 entry fee in order to charge EUR 500,000 plus 7,000 per championship point.

If the regime was already in place, Red Bull would have paid more than EUR 5 million simply to enter the 2012 world championship.