The FIA's World Motor Sport Council has confirmed that it will seek to introduce "competitors' staff licenses" for all teams competing in its world championships.
The proposal, to be assessed by the FIA's General Assembly, will recommend that all teams in the Formula 1 World Championship, World Rally Championship, FIA GT1 World Championship and World Touring Car Championship must hold licences for a minimum of six senior staff. A new FIA Code of Good Standing is to be formed to set out the standards to which the holders of the new licenses must comply.
"A new mechanism will be introduced to control access to areas under the jurisdiction of the FIA and no pass of any kind will be issued to any person or body who is not in good standing for the purposes of the FIA International Sporting Code," said an FIA statement. "Entrants will also become responsible for their staff, meaning any person connected directly or indirectly with the entrant in connection with their participation in an event."
The WMSC first raised the idea of individual licenses for team personnel following the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix "race fixing" scandal, when the FIA banned former Renault team bosses Flavio Briatore and Pat Symonds from involvement in international motorsport indefinitely and for five years, respectively.
These sentences that were later overturned by a Paris court, which ruled that the FIA did not have the authority to penalize team members – rather than teams – in this way. Individual licenses would give the WMSC a larger scope of individual punishment to use in such circumstances.