With continued murmuring, mainly regarding the straightline speeds being achieved by some cars, the FIA has decided to increase the load-testing on floors as from the forthcoming Spanish Grand Prix (May 13)

The FIA revised its original procedure following the season-opener in Melbourne, following claims from McLaren that a couple of teams were using flexing floors which 'lifted' at high speeds thereby increasing top speeds and improving handling when entering a corner.

At that time, McLaren drew the FIA's attention to the practice by cheekily requesting permission to use a (spring) device which would comply with the governing body's static pitlane test, but then help the floor to flex at high speed. Naturally, the FIA turned down the request and set about amending its test, requesting that teams remove any brace or other device fitted between the chassis and floor which might help keep the floor rigid whilst it was being tested.

Although the teams complied there was continued speculation in Malaysia and Bahrain, consequently the FIA has revealed that it is to increase the load used for the test from the current 500 Newtons to a whopping 2000 Newtons.

Furthermore, teams will be required to remove any structure (bracing) between the chassis an the floor to ensure that the floor remains rigid of its own accord.

In 2006 there were similar mutterings regarding flexing wings, and while the FIA hopes that the revised test will kill off any speculation regarding flexing floors one can be 100 certain that the teams are already looking at other ways to 'exploit' the rules, while others will be looking at other ways to catch them.